The Mitchell Review

Abstract

The Hillsborough proposals for a simultaneous act of decommissioning and the devolution of powers to a new inclusive government in Northern Ireland were not acceptable to Republicans because it carried with it an implication of precondition and therefore surrender. It also followed that if Republicans would not accept the deal and decommission, Loyalists would not either. The proposals for a more managed and gradual approach to implementation proposed by the Belfast Telegraph, myself and others were also not acceptable to Republicans and Nationalists because they simply did not trust Unionists and the British government to see such a programme of implementation through to a conclusion once started. So a new proposal was published by the two governments on 2 July 1999 in their ‘Way Forward Statement’ that allowed for the establishment of all of the new institutions of government without any preconditions but that these arrangements would be suspended if decommissioning did not start within a set period of time. This was essentially the solution tested against public opinion in the previous poll undertaken with the PUP and Sinn Féin but with the addition of a ‘failsafe’ clause. Unfortunately, even with this built-in guarantee, these new proposals were not acceptable to the Ulster Unionists. The two governments could delay no longer. On 15 July, when powers were eventually devolved to the New Northern Ireland Assembly the Ulster Unionist Party boycotted the formation of the Executive, the Deputy First Minister, Seamus Mallon, felt it necessary to resign and the Belfast Agreement was plunged into a formal review.