26 June 1997 Edition
Back issue: Campaign dilemma
As the Orange marching season gets under way, the unionist leadership has reached a crossroads in its campaign to smash the Hillsborough Agreement.
Nineteen months on, the Agreement is still in place. It has not yet delivered any reform which might have got the unionist community's backs up, but the Secretariat at Maryfield is operating nevertheless. Thatcher has been re-elected with a safe majority which precludes unionists being in a position of bargaining power for at least four years. Her Dublin counterpart, Charles Haughey, who in opposition had expressed criticism of the agreement, has now given his backing to it.
Meanwhile, the unionist campaign of boycott is dying away. Unionist councillors are drifting back into the councils under the threat of court injunctions or the pressure of local voters and community groups. The Westminster boycott is unofficially over, although unionists are saying that there will only be a return to ``normal parliamentary practice'' when negotiations for an alternative to the Hillsborough Deal are under way. When the British parliament reopens today unionists will be there.
As for the campaign of street agitation and civil disobedience promised by Paisley and Molyneaux, by and large it has not happened. Harold McCusker and Ken Maginnis of the OUP are at present the only two prominent unionists who have spent a few days in Crumlin Road Jail for refusing to pay road taxes or TV licences. The unionist community will march once a year, but it seems it has not got the stomach for protracted campaigns. Loyalist paramilitaries registered their protest against the Hillsborough Agreement in the only way they know how: by killing Catholics. But that had little effect on the British government's determination to implement the Agreement.
Nineteen months on, the Agreement is still in place. It has not yet delivered any reform which might have got the unionist community's backs up, but the Secretariat at Maryfield is operating nevertheless. Thatcher has been re-elected with a safe majority which precludes unionists being in a position of bargaining power for at least four years. Her Dublin counterpart, Charles Haughey, who in opposition had expressed criticism of the agreement, has now given his backing to it.
Meanwhile, the unionist campaign of boycott is dying away. Unionist councillors are drifting back into the councils under the threat of court injunctions or the pressure of local voters and community groups. The Westminster boycott is unofficially over, although unionists are saying that there will only be a return to ``normal parliamentary practice'' when negotiations for an alternative to the Hillsborough Deal are under way. When the British parliament reopens today unionists will be there.
As for the campaign of street agitation and civil disobedience promised by Paisley and Molyneaux, by and large it has not happened. Harold McCusker and Ken Maginnis of the OUP are at present the only two prominent unionists who have spent a few days in Crumlin Road Jail for refusing to pay road taxes or TV licences. The unionist community will march once a year, but it seems it has not got the stomach for protracted campaigns. Loyalist paramilitaries registered their protest against the Hillsborough Agreement in the only way they know how: by killing Catholics. But that had little effect on the British government's determination to implement the Agreement.