Nationalists 'undecided' on RUC reform

The policing issue is looming over police process

The nationalist SDLP has said it is still undecided on its response to the government's plans for a new police service in Northern Ireland.

Many unionists feel the reforms outlined in the Police (NI) Bill go too far, while Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams said at the weekend that he could not encourage nationalists or republicans to join the proposed new force.

Both nationalists and republicans have said they are concerned about the "dilution" of the planned reforms recommended in the Patten report.

They are also concerned that the legislation would give the Northern Ireland secretary the power to make the final decision on whether the title of the Royal Ulster Constabulary should change.

Alex Attwood: Nationalists are looking for answers

The Social Democratic and Labour Party has said it has raised 44 issues of concern about the bill with the government and is waiting for answers.

The party also plans to lobby MPs at Westminster to call for amendments to the bill.

SDLP assemblyman Alex Attwood said: "We need answers consistent with what Patten intended in respect to a new beginning for policing.

"In that context the nationalist community and others will make their minds up and until then the jury will be out."

'Key test for nationalism'

Ulster Unionist assemblyman Michael McGimpsey said that nationalists must accept the "consent principle" central to the Good Friday Agreement, on which the current peace process was based.

"This is the key test for nationalism.

"Are they serious about the consent principle?

"If they are serious about the consent principle that Northern Ireland is part of the UK, then all these other things flow.

"If they are saying that the name of the RUC being included in the title deeds and maybe not in the working title of the police, that this is too much for them and they will walk and refuse to accept the police service, then it calls into question their entire commitment to the process," he said.

While the RUC is not expected to be the "working title" of the new police service, David Trimble's party expects it to be included in the "title deeds" of the new service.

However, the plans to change the title and emblems of the RUC are strongly opposed by many Ulster Unionists.

The party has made retaining the RUC's name a pre-condition to re-entering the suspended Northern Ireland executive.

And the issue is one on which Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble will have to win over the Ulster Unionist Council at its crucial meeting on Saturday to decide whether to accept a return to government.

Sinn Fein warning

Meanwhile, Sinn Fein assemblyman Gerry Kelly warned the Ulster Unionists against insisting on a dilution of the Patten report on the future of policing.

He said unionists should not try to claim any new police force as their own.

"The difficulty is that after the statements from the two governments at the beginning of May, we then got the unionists yet again going to a different section of the Good Friday Agreement and asking for something else."

Sinn Fein has expressed concern that dilution of the Patten proposals could undermine the whole initiative of moving back towards Northern Ireland devolution, because the IRA's offer to put its weapons beyond use was based on assurances that the Good Friday Agreement would be implemented in full.

Meanwhile, Chris Patten, now the EU's external affairs commissioner, called on political parties in Northern Ireland to accept the main principles of his report published last September.

Interviewed on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Mr Patten said he felt strongly that policing should be divorced from politics.

"If you're going to get a police service in which young Catholics as well as young Protestants ... are going to join, then it can't be identified with the central political argument in Northern Ireland, and it's as simple as that."