The Good Friday agreement is not in itself a solution to the sectarian enmities of Northern Ireland. These are so deeply ingrained and go back so far in time that, in moments of despair, they can appear utterly intractable. But we would rather invest in hope, as would the majority of the people in Northern Ireland who see long-term peace, prosperity, and stability ordered by a system of government founded on the principle of consent as the prize glinting on the other side of the polling booth. All it requires is a sufficiently large majority to endorse the agreement in today's referendum. Anything less than a 65% Yes vote would be grievously damaging to the pro-deal camp since it would mean that a minority, not a majority, of Unionists had backed the agreement. In such a dark scenario political legitimacy for the deal would be denied and could, perversely, be handed to a Unionist grouping

intent on scuppering the proposed Assembly and its linked institutions.

It could also destroy Mr David Trimble, the Ulster Unionist who has staked his political career on delivering a massive Protestant Yes vote. He has done so heroically, and deserves great credit for his extraordinary achievement to date, given the historical baggage of Unionism bearing down on him. He and the other leaders of the incredibly diverse Yes campaign have been unfairly criticised for the way their campaign has been run. It, too, has had a single focus (vote in the affirmative, not the negative), but it has involved 12 parties, many of which knew that to cross the religious divide and campaign in an unwelcoming community would be political, possibly literal, suicide. But it hit the ground in exhaustion after relentlessly punishing negotiations on an agreement which might have collapsed right up to the last moment.

By contrast, the hard-line Unionist No campaign had several months in which to prepare for the referendum battle, and started in a fresh and fit frame of mind. It has had a very good negative campaign. And if it is successful? Look not to its leaders for an answer. The rebel Unionist MP Willie Ross was as enlightening as anybody when he said that the Government would have to look for an alternative because any alternative was better than what was on offer. That answer is as cowardly as it is intellectually empty. It betrays the sterility of the No campaign. The status quo is not an option and if there had been a better alternative it would have been found by the parties which represent most of Northern Ireland's communities and which had the courage to negotiate long and hard.

The No campaign cleverly crystallised the nagging doubts ordinary, law-abiding Unionists have about the deal by exploiting the political fallout from the triumphalist Balcombe Street gang appearance at the defining Sinn Fein conference (they were also appalled by the appearance of the loyalist killer Michael Stone at a pro-agreement Unionist rally). And they have been offended by the part of the agreement which guarantees release for all paramilitary prisoners in two years, subject to strict conditions. For the hard-line Unionist dissemblers the leap is short from convicted terrorist killer today to Assembly statesman tomorrow. Yes, it could happen. It has before. Menachem Begin became a peace-dealing Israeli premier. Nelson Mandela, the embodiment of greatness in the late twentieth century, was a terrorist. In Northern Ireland it is to be hoped that the former loyalist prisoner David Ervine

will play a part in the Assembly.

The loyalist dissemblers choose to forget that Northern Ireland has for many years had the most liberal prisoner-release scheme in the UK, and that released lifers were influential in bringing about the ceasefires. What is proposed is a speeding up of the process. Mr Blair and Dr Mowlam have played a hugely commendable part in the peace process. If all goes to plan it will be something of a paradox that the Prime Minister's greatest achievements to date will have been in the constitutional arena, in Scotland and Northern Ireland, the parts of Britain where he is least popular. There will be a resounding Yes vote from the nationalist community in Northern Ireland, as there will be in the Irish Republic for removing the constitutional claim on the north. It is the wavering Northern Ireland loyalists who must be won over. Mr Blair's pledge is directed mainly at them. They must embrace it and

buy their one-way ticket for the peace train. Leave the empty platform to the twisted purists at both extremes. Let them argue over their tickets to the past.