Northern Ireland (St Andrews Agreement) Bill

From my perspective in Essex, there is an elephant trap for the constitutional parties—the Ulster Unionists, the Democratic Unionist party and colleagues in the Social Democratic and Labour party. If Sinn Fein does not deliver in a short time, surely it faces a dilemma. It may wish to maximise its strength, but it will go to the electorate without delivering or being prepared to play ball. There is a danger that ambiguous and confused signals will be sent to the various electorates. The parties want elections, and they want to maximise their seats to show their strength, but they will not enter a coalition with people who have not signed up to the police and court services.