Empey trying to weather PUP storm

By Mark Devenport Political editor, BBC Northern Ireland

Last month, former US Democrat Senator Lloyd Bentsen died.

Although he served as US treasury secretary, he will be best remembered as the vice-presidential candidate who put down his young Republican rival Dan Quayle.

Sir Reg Empey has come under pressure over the PUP link

When Quayle compared himself to John F Kennedy, Bentsen famously replied: "Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy - Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy."

In recent weeks, the Ulster Unionist leader Sir Reg Empey has portrayed his assembly liaison with the UVF-linked Progressive Unionists as unionism's version of the Hume-Adams initiative.

So far, no SDLP grandee has been wheeled out to deliver a similar, Bentsen-esque, "I knew John Hume" put down to Sir Reg.

But in the wake of the shooting of Mark Haddock, which is being blamed on the UVF, John Hume's successor as SDLP leader, Mark Durkan, appears unimpressed.

He accused the UUP of engaging in "a stroke too far".

Clearly there are some parallels. During the months of the Hume-Adams initiative, IRA violence continued.

John Hume drew tremendous public criticism from unionists plus not a little grumbling within his own party ranks.

Sir Reg has drawn parallels with the Hume-Adams pact

Eventually, though, when the IRA delivered its 1994 ceasefire, only the most obdurate could deny Hume's achievement.

If Sir Reg Empey is able to claim credit for the UVF standing down, then he may find a place in the same political Valhalla where John Hume already has a reserved spot.

But the shooting of Mark Haddock shows that, like John Hume, Sir Reg may have to weather some hard times.

It is fair to assume the shooting will have done nothing to lessen the "distress" felt about the PUP alliance by the UUP's only MP, Sylvia Hermon, and those who share her views.

Although the UUP has come in for withering verbal criticism, UUP members have not had to suffer anything like the physical assaults and intimidation against SDLP members who, during the Hume-Adams period, were accused by loyalists of being part of a "pan-nationalist front".

Sacrificed position

Nor could the SDLP ever have been accused of seeking partisan advantage.

Far from giving them a leg up into high office, with the Hume-Adams initiative the SDLP sacrificed their dominant position within nationalism to their rivals in Sinn Fein.

The Ulster Unionists have conflated their assembly deal with David Ervine with Sir Reg's decision to meet the loyalist paramilitary leadership, a move which he confirmed on the Inside Politics programme back in March.

David Ervine joined the Ulster Unionist group at the NI assembly

In the latest Inside Politics, however, Alliance deputy leader Naomi Long made a distinction between talking to loyalists and entering a formal alliance with them.

She said her party was not critical of the UUP trying to broker peace, but reserved the right to condemn its formal associations with the PUP in the assembly and with the UPRG in Belfast City Hall.

Also on Inside Politics, David Ervine insisted that Sir Reg's initiative would work if only it is given a chance.

But the PUP leader would not be drawn on whether the UVF will accelerate its consultation in order to reward Sir Reg for the risks he is running.

Senior loyalist sources suggest that if there is a deal on devolution, the UVF would deliver an end to activity within a matter of days.

The logic is that restoring devolution would answer the UVF leadership's doubts about Plan B - the "joint stewardship" between north and south which Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern talked about during their visit to Armagh.

The irony is that the unionist leader who can deliver a deal is not Sir Reg Empey but the DUP's Ian Paisley.

The current UVF strategy could risk delivering the plaudits for a UVF stand down not to the leader who reached out to the PUP, but to the one who is most enjoying Sir Reg Empey's current discomfort.