Politics: Unionist standard bearers square up to Sinn Fein

David Trimble's Ulster Unionist party yesterday took a hugely significant step in the Northern Ireland peace process by joining the Stormont talks which include Sinn Fein. David Mckittrick, Ireland Correspondent , reports they are expected to meet the republicans face-to-face next week.

The Ulster Unionist at the gate, wearing a pinstripe suit and holding an incongruous can of Coke, got the message to his party colleagues that Gerry Adams and Sinn Fein had safely entered the talks building. The coast was clear. The cheerful Stormont gatekeeper swung open the big gate and in they flowed, a slow-moving phalanx of 30 men and a couple of women, the standard-bearers of Ulster Unionism on their way to confront Sinn Fein.

David Trimble led the way, flanked by MPs John Taylor and Ken Maginnis, walking towards the massed media. He had, as they say up the Shankill, brought backings with him, for he led in not just his own party but also the two small but important loyalist groupings, the Progressive Unionists and Ulster Democratic party.

They made their way towards the second gate at a dignified pace, then Mr Trimble paused to tell the cameras: "We are not here to negotiate with Sinn Fein but to confront them - to expose their fascist character. Unionism will not be marginalised."

Unknown to Mr Trimble, a Sinn Fein representative leaned in from the edge of the media scrum to hear his words, with what looked suspiciously like the trace of a smile. He seemed pleased at the UUP leader's words, signifying as they did that a face-to-face encounter was not far off.

David Ervine of the PUP said a few words, as did the UDP's Gary McMichael, whose father, a loyalist paramilitary leader, was killed by the IRA. Then they walked through the doors that would lead them into talks. Close up, it seemed less like a bold radical initiative than bowing to the inevitable. With John Major in power the UUP spent months fending off contact with the republicans; the change came when Tony Blair took over.

Yesterday the party was caught in a pincer movement, one part of which was government pressure to get into talks. The other came from underneath - from, astonishingly, the once legendarily intractable loyalist grassroots. First an opinion poll showed 93 per cent of the party's supporters wanted talks, and then, at Saturday's meeting of the party executive, more than 30 of the 36 speakers urged dialogue. Together these forces made entry into the talks an imperative which even Tuesday's bombing in Markethill could not deflect.

The Rev Ian Paisley's party remains aloof, yesterday accusing Mr Trimble of being "terrorised to the talks table." But the loyalist paramilitary hardliners, who are in a position to attack the talks with much more than mere rhetoric, were there in Mr Trimble's phalanx, ready to talk.

The three-party arrangement represented a display of Unionist and loyalist solidarity, though it did so at some cost to the arguments Mr Trimble will use in the talks when he insists on arms de-commissioning. In the ranks of his phalanx were four men who committed six murders and served long sentences for them. Though known now as politicos, the illegal groups which their parties represent are as adamant as the IRA that no guns will be de-commissioned this side of a settlement.

Mr Maginnis seemed his usual affable self during the walk but the day must have been difficult for him. He has been an IRA target for more than a quarter of a century, first as a member of the Ulster Defence Regiment and then as an MP.

He spoke once of his murdered colleagues: "I think I have lost almost all my closest friends in the UDR ...all decent, dependable fellows." But yesterday he walked into Stormont to see if he could do business with republicans, wondering, with everyone, else whether through talks the hurt might some day be replaced with hope.