The missing link

UNIONIST LEADERSHIP: INDIVIDUAL INSTRUCTIONS (x2)

You are two members of the Unionist Party leadership who negotiated the Belfast Agreement and are now leading members of the new administration. One of you is the First Minister.

You think the Agreement is the best deal that was possible for Unionists and you want it to implemented. You do not trust Sinn Féin and the IRA who you believe are the same people but you recognise that you have to work with Sinn Féin if the Agreement is to work. You are very angry that the IRA will not decommission. You think it is their obligation and you have taken many risks with your own political careers to try to gain support for the Agreement within your party.

You are willing to accept your party’s decision that you should resign from the new institutions at 10.45 and bring the Agreement down. You are not prepared to try to make them change their mind. At the same time you are angry with your party because they do not see that the break-down of the Agreement will make the situation worse and that any new settlement in the future will probably be more favourable to nationalists and give more influence to the Irish Government.

When you entered into the new institutions without decommissioning you got a guarantee from the British Government that it would suspend the Agreement if no weapons were decommissioned and you now expect it to honour that promise.

You can make direct contact with the Unionist Party council members without sending a message through the post office.

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