Their problem is how to offer sufficient concessions to get collaboration from nationalists without alienating the Unionists. The disjunction between claim and reality could not be more stark. Eight weeks later, this 'unemployed' representative of the British state, with a stroke of the pen, was able to wipe out all the structures and institutions of a supposed new and independent local democracy, as well as wiping out whole series of agreements and institutions supposed to be jointly under the control of the Irish government and enshrined in international law. The unilateral actions of the British government have even caused a visible upset in the supine Irish neocolonial bourgeoisie and its government in Dublin. That is perhaps not surprising.
Huge issues are at stake.
And yes, at times, there are differences of emphasis between us,' he said. When the last power-sharing crisis was temporarily resolved, the Irish government implemented changes in the constitution renouncing its right to sovereignty over the North. It now faces the prospect of having nothing to show for an historic surrender. The same is even more true for the Sinn Fein leadership. There is a lot of speculation in the Irish press about disillusionment in the ranks of the Republican movement.