LONDON — As Prime Minister Tony Blair formed a new government Friday on the heels of a sweeping electoral victory, his Protestant allies in Northern Ireland suffered a setback, casting doubt on the future of the peace process there.
Blair paid a traditional postelection call on Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace before returning to 10 Downing St. to reshuffle his Cabinet for the Labor Party's second term.
Labor's landslide--amid the worst voter turnout since 1918--was "a mandate for reform and for investment in the future, and it is also very clearly an instruction to deliver," Blair said.
Opposition Conservative leader William Hague, meanwhile, resigned Friday as party chief, opening the door for a bruising succession battle between Tories who favor a pro-European policy and those who oppose it, as Hague did during his failed campaign.
But attention turned suddenly to Northern Ireland late Friday as the vote count dealt a serious blow to Ulster Unionist Party chief David Trimble, who heads the province's Protestant-Roman Catholic power-sharing government.
Trimble, a Nobel Peace Prize winner whose party had nine seats in the previous British Parliament, barely held on to his own seat against David Simpson, a relative unknown from the Rev. Ian Paisley's anti-peace-deal Democratic Unionist Party, and the Ulster Unionists lost two others to hard-liners.
With the Protestant vote divided, Trimble's party also lost two seats to the Irish Republican Army's political ally, Sinn Fein. The Ulster Unionists threatened to challenge one of those in court over alleged irregularities.
The evangelist Paisley cruised to victory in the North Antrim seat he has held since 1970.
"Protestants are sickened at the sight of terrorists at the heart of our government," said Paisley lieutenant Nigel Dodds, who took one of the seats from Trimble's party. "We will do everything we can to expel this cancer from the body politic."
The poor result for Trimble cast doubt on his ability to retain the leadership of his party, which is also divided over the peace process. Without Trimble, or another moderate Protestant, Northern Ireland's fledgling government could collapse and take the 1998 Good Friday peace accord down with it.
As Trimble left the vote count--and recount--in his Upper Bann constituency under police escort, he was jostled, shouted at and called "traitor" by Protestant opponents who threw dirt at his departing car.
