He has recently
threatened to resign if the
IRA don't begin
decommissioning
weapons within an agreed
deadline. The IRA don't seem inclined to do this.
Combined with the
fact that they performed
pitifully in the
UK General Election 2001 (
UUP 6 seats,
DUP 5,
Sinn Fein 4 and
SDLP 3, as I remember), it seems as though Mr. Trimble's
political days are numbered.
It was Mr. Trimble who persuaded the unionists that the
Good Friday Agreement was A
Good Thing, and that it was not simply gving in to the nationalists. It is generally accepted that
unionist support for the Good Friday Agreement is dependent on Mr. Trimble's leadership of the UUP; his resignation would exacerbate
party splits and give more political opportunity to the
rabidly unionist DUP, led by the equally rabid
Reverend Ian Paisley. It therefore seems likely that his resignation would lead to the collapse of the Good Friday Agreement, and a return to the '
Troubles'.
And no, there is no good
reason why this is
softlinked to
cat shaving techniques.
Casualty of the
search button.