FLYING to Northern Ireland today to appeal to its voters to back the Good Friday peace deal, Tony Blair may have a difficult task in securing the resounding "Yes" that he wants in next week's referendum.

For in addition to the mistrust and bigotry that is endemic on both sides of the Ulster divide, there are aspects of the deal that must trouble many loyalists who do crave peace and accommodation.

For reform of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, the early release of paramilitary prisoners and the still-unachieved handover of terrorist weapons are issues that must place doubt in many minds over whether the agreement goes beyond reasonable compromise and instead extends to appeasement of the republican cause.

Even so, though many in Ulster are, through blind bigotry, not prepared to concede anything to the republican case and though many, more reasonably, will compromise, but will not accept "peace at any price," Mr Blair's best hope of a convincing "Yes" vote - north and south of the border - must lie in the general desire for a fair peace settlement.

There is a clear momentum for that hope, sufficient perhaps to provide a distinct if not resounding "Yes," in the referendum results - though these concerns, underlined by the counterproductive effect of loyalist repugnance at Sinn Fein's triumphalism last weekend, may lessen the distinction in Ulster itself.

But perhaps the most potent force for a "Yes" vote lies in a widespread subconscious dread of what is to follow if, after all the tortuous efforts of the peace process, the outcome was to be "No."

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