Mike Small (Fife, Guardian): The Council of the Isles meets in Belfast today for the first time since nationalists joined or led the governments of Scotland, Cymru and Northern Ireland. The Westminster Government probably sees it as a piece of baroque constitutional artifice, box-ticking for the extremities, a nod to the recalcitrant Celtic fringe. But for the host, Ian Paisley, the Council (as his predecessor David Trimble put it) "makes it possible for Unionists to contemplate an institutionalised relationship between Belfast and Dublin".
The North-South Ministerial Council, a key institution of the Belfast Agreement, will meet the following day in Armagh. Dr Paisley has made a point of emphasising that the East-West relationship should have equal billing with the North-South link, which is why the two institutions are meeting on the same week.
Officially, the British-Irish Council (as Unionists refer to it) concentrates on eight subject areas: drugs, health, the environment, the knowledge economy, social inclusion, tourism, transport and minority languages. Ho hum and small beer, yet plenty there for leaders like Salmond to get his teeth into. While the talk is of ‘conciliation and co-operation' the council will give the Scottish Government a platform to challenge perceived iniquities of the British State. For minority language expect broadcasting: a digital channel for Gaelic and the return of the Scottish Six. For social inclusion expect a challenge to the Blairite economic orthodoxy (or mocking references to the ‘Union Dividend'). For environment expect Trident 2 and new nuclear to emerge.
At this, the first meeting between Gordon Brown and Alex Salmond, talk will turn again to two models, that of UK - Eire relations and that of how the Scandinavian nations relate to each other. For Salmond the Council is not just a platform for glad-handing and grandstanding, it is a way of exposing the iniquities of current power relations. While the English political classes are stuck like a broken record on Barnett, the comfortable myths of subsidy-junkiedom and West Lothian, the world moves on.
Speaking last year Salmond couldn't have been clearer about his hopes for the group: "I believe this provides a starting point but with Scottish independence there will be an opportunity to develop and improve our co-operation based on the Nordic model. We would all benefit from a new Council of the Isles."
To what extent diplomatic posturing will feed the egos of elected politicians remains unclear. But vastly different expectations and projections settle on today's meeting. One thing is sure, the shifting plates of British Politics are moving, and they may be moving quicker than Brown can hand down a Constitutional fix.
Two days before being pipped to the post in Scotland, Gordon Brown made the extraordinary statement that he would find it "impossible" to work as prime minister with a Scottish National party-led government in Edinburgh if its leader, Alex Salmond, refuses to abandon his "dangerous and disastrous" plans for independence.
It seems that much at least has changed.
