Last October Tony Blair called occasions like Hillsborough today ‘Groundhog Day’. He wanted to end “inch by inch negotiation”.

Yet here he is again four months later going through the motions with Bertie Ahern just as they were doing almost exactly five years ago and half a dozen times since. Rest assured it won’t be the last time. There’ll be no ‘acts of completion’ today. Despite his aim, set out last October, it’s been ‘inch by inch negotiation’ ever since.

What the Irish and British governments expect republicans to do has been pretty comprehensively leaked: public decommissioning, expanding the terms of the IRA ceasefire, movement on policing and so on. Republican leaders have been preparing their followers to be ready for another big shift in position.

Martin McGuinness has said the republican movement is “up for it”. He believes they can make a big jump. It’s fairly obvious he has outlined to Richard Haass, the Taoiseach and Tony Blair what Sinn Féin is prepared to do.

We also know that this time there will be what Gerry Adams last year called a ‘time-limited’ arrangement so that, if republicans carry out an act, there will be a reciprocal act from the British within an agreed timespan.

It’s such an obvious procedure the only question is why republican negotiators didn’t insist on it five years ago. The only two dates in the Good Friday Agreement were Halloween 1998 for the establishment of the all-Ireland bodies and June 2000 for completion of decommissioning. Neither date was met, the decommissioning deadline missed because republicans objected to British foot-dragging and David Trimble’s refusal to implement his obligations under the agreement, including establishing the executive and the all-Ireland bodies.

Trimble’s obstructionist attitude to the agreement has remained unchanged. Tony Blair referred obliquely in his October speech to the behaviour of unionists. It’s crystal clear who he had in mind when he talked about those who allegedly support the agreement but are “always pointing out its faults, never aiding its strengths”.

He also promised to “protect the institutions from arbitrary interruption and interference”. How? There is a need for sanctions to penalise unionists. Perhaps sparkling gifts for republicans are the most hurtful penalties for unionists.

Here we come to the crux. While republicans have been preparing their supporters for some major development which they probably won’t like; might even see as a betrayal of core values; could possibly mean defections from the ranks, have you heard of a word from Trimble about what unionists might have to do? Quite the opposite: Trimble has not distanced himself from his own dissidents who, no matter what Trimble or anyone else accepts at Hillsborough today or next month, will call a meeting of the Ulster Unionist Council to frustrate any commitments Trimble signs up to.

For five years Trimble has been making demands on the republican movement which many regard as deliberately calculated to be impossible for republicans to accept. When they do accept them Trimble invents new demands and threatens to collapse the institutions of the agreement if he doesn’t get them. In this process Tony Blair and, to a lesser extent, Bertie Ahern, have acted as his agents, delivering Trimble’s ultimatums to republicans.

Now it seems republicans believe the time has come to take a ‘big jump’; in other words concede all the latest demands in one go in return for a big jump by the British. This approach is long overdue. It has the triple advantage in that it earns Sinn Féin a gold star from the two governments and the US, Trimble can’t veto it and it also exposes him as the real problem.

The only ploy left to him will be to demand a delay in holding elections. He wants a year. Some senior UUP figures prefer September or October. No matter.

After elections you won’t be able to slip a cigarette paper between the DUP and the people who will dominate the UUP assembly party. Trimble may as well accept elections in May. His undermining of the agreement has reduced unionist support for it from 51% to less than 30%.

He will be unable to deliver restoration of the north’s institutions because it will be impossible to elect twenty-five unionists who support the agreement. His leadership of the UUP has left the party divided and directionless, unable to provide a partner in administration for nationalists. But then, maybe that’s what he wanted all along.