Tony Blair's supreme achievement

I have said many things about Tony Blair, much of it affected by my anger over the Iraq debacle, but I have to say that his supreme achievement as a politician has been the historic event that took place today, namely the re-constitution of the Northern Irish Assembly with the Protestant Rev Ian Paisley as First Minister and with Martin McGuinness of Sinn Fein as his deputy.




This is an achievement, after thirty years of bloody struggle in Northern Ireland, which is little short of miraculous and something which no one, even a year or so ago, could ever see happening. Paisley, the extreme Protestant, whose anti-Catholic marches nearly 40 years ago first compelled British troops to occupy the Province. A man whose hatred of the IRA is visceral. A man who raged long and hard, his body shaking with emotion against those 'Republican savages who had brought death and destruction to Northern Ireland'.




And now, serving with him, maybe the arch 'Republican savage', Martin McGuinness, former active IRA chief, whose personal involvement in acts of terrorism and murder, of Protestants and British soldiers too, is not in too much dispute. Alongside him in Stormont sits Gerry Adams, the Sinn Fein senior spokesman, the 'brains' of Republicanism.



Of course this re-constitution is just the first tentative step to power sharing and the whole thing might fall apart before the first bill is discussed but simply to have got this far is amazing.

It is like, in American terms, Malcolm X agreeing to work with the Ku Klux Klan, so polarised have been their positions, so much hatred having existed between the two camps.

After thirty years of para military groups on both sides of the religious divide targeting their opposing communities, often with dreadful bloody consequences like the Omagh bombing, few would have seen this situation coming about. Since 1969 there have been over 1000 British soldiers killed in the province and nearly 2000 civilians on both sides of the religious divide

It was the first task Tony Blair set for himself and his Ministers on taking office in 1997 when the late Mo Mowlam was Northern Ireland Secretary and she and Blair pushed hard and often aggressively for what turned out to be the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. So much hope was placed in that agreement but thanks to the delicate politics of Northern Ireland and the deeply entrenched differences even within one side - the Protestant community deeply divided over whether any concessions should be made to the Irish Republican movement - the Good Friday agreement fell by the wayside and the Northern Irish Protestant leader, David Trimble, was eventually forced to resign.

The situation looked hopeless, particularly when the arch enemy of any truck with the Catholics, the Democratic Unionist Party and its leader Ian Paisley, won the highest share of the Protestant vote. It looked like a stalemate for Paisley refused to believe any promise an IRA man made.

But Blair, together with his ministers, and Bertie Ahern the Taoiseach of the Irish Republic, worked hard, often at snails pace to get these two sets of glowering, hating politicians to the conference table. It often seemed a doomed unrewarding task, yet step by step, promise by promise, they succeeded in inching forward and overcoming fundamental and intense distrust to the point that has proudly been reached today. Northern Ireland has a new government with former arch enemies, Catholic and Protestant, Empire preservationists and One Ireland Republicans all sitting round the same table to bring a new enlightened and peaceful face to Northern Ireland.

And as he makes his announcement this week about resigning as Prime Minister, Tony Blair can justly and proudly look at the Stormont into which he has put so much work and say 'This was my finest hour'.