Thankless, costly, but resolutely democratic

AFTER the Heathrow mortars, let us stand back for five minutes and regard the Government's Northern Ireland policy with awe.

This policy exposes our mainland citizens to continuing physical threat and huge inconvenience. In Northern Ireland, more than 3,000 people have died violently in the course of its implementation.

This policy is causing our economy huge, often unquantifiable risks. The Bishopsgate bomb in the City sent shivers through corporate banking decision-makers. Since then, fixed and random roadblocks have been pretty effective and no overseas bank has left. But the South of England depends hugely on these businesses staying open in London. Heathrow is smaller beer. But 50,000 people work there; it is the world's biggest international airport, and the mortar attacks will hinder it in its cut-throat battle to maintain its position against Paris, Frankfurt and Amsterdam. Last year, almost 6 million American passengers used Heathrow: CNN's reporting of the attack highlighted the dangers of using the British airport.

This policy is expensive in other ways for a moderately sized and economically struggling country. In 1992-93, the net flow of money to Northern Ireland from the Exchequer was pounds 3.3bn. This does not include the military costs; but without the Northern Irish conflict, we would have a smaller army.

This policy has, however, been more serious for our polity than our economy. It provoked shameful failures in Britain's system of justice, from wrongful imprisonments to the erosion of liberties. It has persuaded the Government to chip away at ancient freedoms in defence of the (even more) fundamental freedom not to be murdered.

This policy has, in consequence, severely damaged Britain's standing abroad, particularly in the US. Incidents such as the wrongful conviction of the Guildford Four, disseminated to Middle America via In the Name of the Father, have dreadfully harmed our national reputation.

This policy has forced our leading ministers to live cocooned lives, hidden behind security fences and gates, followed by police, unable to stroll freely along the streets. The mental effect can only be guessed at; but democracies live partly by symbolism. That Downing Street is no longer a thoroughfare and Tory conferences require months of high-profile police work at coastal towns are symbols that have done the ruling party no favours.

This policy is a thankless one. If the polls are anything to go by, it is not supported by the electorate. The instinctive mutual sympathy of Ulster Unionists and British Conservatives waned long ago: this policy wins ministers abuse and antagonism from the leaders of those it is meant to protect. In Britain, the ministers are regularly accused of spinelessness and appeasement, except by those who accuse them of cold-hearted imperialism.

By most measurements of national interest, this policy fails. It is economically damaging, unpopular at home and internationally, subversive of our political culture. Ruthless, logical ministers would ponder. Then, as the IRA invites them to do, they would scuttle.

But I have, of course, left out the heart of the matter. The Downing Street declaration was an appeal. But it was not appeasement: it rested on the right of the Northern Ireland majority to decide their own constitutional future. Any government which withdrew that right after assessing its costs and because of the actions of a minority would be despicable.

John Major's government does not have many claims on our loyalty. It has failed to set or lead the terms of national debate. In Europe, its priorities have been too skewed to the interests of Conservative Party unity. Having accepted no responsibility whatever for the recession, its future request to be credited with recovery should be laughed off these islands. It has not been punctilious about the constitution. Its rhetoric on many domestic issues has been marked by shoddy populism.

But it is not a wicked government, nor a terminally cynical one, and the long pain of Northern Ireland should remind us of that. Mr Major's peace initiative was a brave and honourable act, and is not diminished by the IRA's failure of democratic nerve. The warlords' latest communique, stressing their desire to be 'flexible and positive', may be merely a jeer. More likely, it is a desperately dangled carrot, intended to balance the sticks of explosive, and part of a policy predicated on the ignorant assumption that a few more turns of the screw will bring the 'concession' of a final British sell-out. Either way, Mr Major has nothing further to offer: he cannot clarify a clear offer any further, nor can he extend it without a betrayal of the democratic system he represents.

When the declaration was made public, it was clear that the IRA- Sinn Fein leadership had a historic opportunity. It could come in from the cold in a way that would guarantee it high international status, plaudits from America and speeches in the European Parliament. There would be the prospect of a newly united nationalist movement working for political and democratic changes within Northern Ireland. In time, reforms in the south and greater prosperity might erode Unionist suspicion.

The gulls in all this are not the British police, or the prime ministers, or the Unionists or the long- suffering public. They are those IRA leaders who believe that democracy can be negotiated away if they close down enough runways. They look far lonelier than they did a month or so ago. President Clinton has strongly affirmed support for the declaration; Ireland's Dick Spring has called the IRA's peace discussions a charade. Mr Major has faults, God knows. But when it comes to democratic stubbornness, enough to see this policy through, he is still a man we can trust.