BLAIR’S BRITAIN, 1997–2007
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August 1986, some months before Haughey was again elected Taoiseach,
Father Reid travelled to see him at his Georgian estate at Kinsealy outside
Dublin. According to one authoritative account, this crucial discussion
resulted in the first offer of an IRA ceasefire just nine months later and the
subsequent creation of the strategy that would see the end of the IRA’s
long war against the British state in Northern Ireland.3
Others, too, helped shape and direct it, not least Irish diplomat Sean O
hUiginn, regarded by many as the single most formidable exponent of
Irish nationalism. Much attention focused for a time on proposals
thought to have resulted from the famous ‘Hume/Adams’ dialogue. But O
hUiginn was the intellectual driving force in the Irish Department of
Foreign Affairs where Labour leader Dick Spring served as Foreign
Minister in the 1992/4 Fianna Fail/Labour coalition led by Taoiseach
Albert Reynolds.
13 Ed Moloney, A Secret History of the IRA (Harmondsworth: Penguin/Allen Lane, 2002),
pp. 261–2.
It is also necessary to record that the much-vaunted ‘pan-nationalist
front’ in this period was hardly a seamless robe. The effort to bring the
IRA and Sinn Fein into politics saw profound pressures brought to bear
within the SDLP and upon successive coalition governments in Dublin. It
could hardly have been otherwise as the ‘constitutional’ parties debated
how far they would be prepared to go to accommodate republicans who
continued to kill and bomb, and purported to do so ‘in the name of the
Irish people’.
This internal nationalist debate was graphically illustrated at one
point when Spring disagreed with a proposal by Reynolds to present, as
the Irish government’s own, a draft joint declaration sent to it by the
Provisional IRA. The draft was in fact a response to one that had originated from Reynolds’ own emissary, the influential Martin Mansergh. At
the core of this disagreement appears to have been Reynolds’ plan to
present the proposal to Major as a fait accompli. And it illuminated fundamental questions which – while illustrating the significant advance
already made in republican thinking – also revealed the extent to which
they would still have to travel if ever there was to be a successful engagement with unionists. On the one hand, the republican draft indicated
acceptance that ‘self-determination by the people of Ireland’ would have
to be achieved ‘with the agreement and consent of the people of Northern
Ireland’. Against that, the republican expectation seemed to be that, in
return, London would have to accept that this act of self-determination
would result in ‘agreed independent structures for the whole island
within an agreed time-frame’.4
It was precisely such ambiguities that unionists detected in the Joint
Declaration for Peace issued by Reynolds and Major in December 1993
and the Joint Framework Documents concluded by Major and then
Taoiseach John Bruton in February 1995. The need for the ‘consent’ of the
people of Northern Ireland for constitutional change was there. So too,
however, were proposals for new North/South institutions with ‘executive, harmonising and consultative functions over a range of designated
matters to be agreed’. Unionists regarded this as code for an embryonic
all-Ireland parliament. Nor could it be said they were wrong, after Irish
Foreign Minister David Andrews would declare the Irish intention was to
see cross-border bodies operating with powers ‘not unlike a government’.
Reynolds undoubtedly inspired his own officials and commanded the
respect of Sinn Fein leaders. However, his apparent certainty about
14 Fergus Finlay, Snakes and Ladders (Dublin: New Island Books, 1998), pp. 188–9.
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republican bona fides and his unshakeable ‘can do’ approach made life
difficult for the Conservatives, not least by so discomfiting the unionists.
Indeed, when Reynolds once famously asked ‘Who’s afraid of peace?’
many unionists saw it as something of a threat.
Then Ulster Unionist leader James (Lord) Molyneaux would be widely
ridiculed for suggesting that the emerging process had the capacity to ‘destabilise’ Northern Ireland. The point was not that unionists did not want
peace – rather they feared ‘the price’ at which it was being offered, and
that might be paid for it. Nationalists and republicans might have
warmed to the spectacle of President Clinton overriding British concerns
in granting Adams a visa to visit the US at a crucial juncture. And
Clinton, along with leading figures in ‘Irish America’, would fairly claim
their share in the credit for the events leading to the negotiation of the
Belfast Agreement in 1998 and the DUP/Sinn Fein settlement subsequently brokered by Blair and Taoiseach Ahern in 2007. Back in 1995,
however, unionists were easily psyched by a ‘pan-nationalist consensus’
stretching all the way from the office of the Taoiseach to the Clinton
White House, and by the expectations it fostered.
The surprise was that unionists reacted as calmly as they did to the revelation of the Major government’s own secret ‘back channel’ to the IRA.
And some of them – including loyalist paramilitary spokesmen like Gusty
Spence, Gary McMichael and the late David Ervine – attempted to make
fairly sophisticated assessments of their own about the IRA’s intentions.
Major’s Secretary of State Sir Patrick Mayhew, and his deputy Michael
Ancram, also provided protection for unionists in the three-stranded talks
process that would be the basis for the negotiation of the Belfast
Agreement, and, above all, with the so-called ‘triple lock’ requiring that
any outcome be acceptable to the parties and people of Northern Ireland
and parliament at Westminster. However, it would be some time before it
became clear that there was no ‘secret deal’ on an agreed outcome between
the British and the Provisionals. Moreover, the Conservatives had ‘form’,
most recently in the shape of the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement. It was
perhaps not totally surprising then that Molyneaux’s successor, David
(Lord) Trimble, decided he could get a better deal from Blair – notwithstanding Labour’s traditional policy of seeking Irish unity by consent.
New Labour, new policy
In one particularly memorable interview during the Iraq War, Blair
defended his policy in respect of ‘liberal interventionism’ and the
American alliance, suggesting the situation was worse than the Labour
left suspected – that he actually believed in these things.
As with Iraq, so in Northern Ireland, people would frequently ask
whether the Prime Minister believed in anything much at all, and, more
to the point, whether anything he said was to be trusted. The readacross from the international crisis – and the recurring question of
‘trust’ – would certainly inform thinking and reinforce prejudices across
the Northern Ireland divide. For nationalists a
nd republicans evidence
that the Blair government and its security services manipulated the
intelligence about Saddam Hussein’s alleged weapons of mass destruction would be taken as proof of the unchanging character and nature
of ‘perfidious Albion’. Despite the support of their MPs for the war,
meanwhile, many unionists were reminded of past American support
for the IRA and thought Blair guilty of double standards – tough on terrorism abroad while accommodating its perpetrators and apologists at
home.
Unacknowledged for the most part was what for some was the biggest
paradox of all: the insistence of Anglo-Irish policy that Sinn Fein be
included as of right in an Executive in Belfast, while the Ahern government maintained the party had not satisfied the democratic test, and
therefore remained unfit for ministerial office in the Republic.
Blair finally addressed this issue in a speech in October 2002, admitting: ‘To this blunt question: “how come the Irish Government won’t
allow Sinn Fein to be in government in the South until the IRA ceases its
activity, but unionists must have them in government in the North?”,
there are many sophisticated answers. But no answer as simple, telling
and direct as the question.’
Blair was speaking during the crisis sparked by the discovery of an
alleged republican ‘spy ring’ at the heart of the Stormont administration,
warning that he could not continue ‘with the IRA half in, half out of the
process’. Yet he obviously never thought to transform the situation by
answering the ‘blunt question’ himself, and telling Dublin that he would
no longer tolerate the paradox and that the question of devolution for the
North would be put on hold until the South resolved its own republican
problem.
In posing the question, the Prime Minister at least acknowledged its
effect on unionist opinion. But did he actually share their sense of grievance? What was the merit in identifying a problem while doing nothing to
seek its resolution? Was this not evidence rather of Blair’s willingness to say
what seemed to be required at any particular moment in time? As described
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above, much of the big thinking, and structural and administrative
preparation, had preceded him. Did he have any strong views of his own
about what would constitute a legitimate settlement on Northern Ireland?
Or was the search for peace there simply one of those ‘eye-catching initiatives’ with which (courtesy of another embarrassing leaked email) we knew
he liked to be associated?
Those irreconcilables who damn Blair and all his works would doubtless have him denied even his Irish peace prize and cheerfully answer this
last question in the affirmative. However, the answer – at least in the ‘big
picture’ terms that Blair himself liked to speak – must surely be ‘no’.
Blair could certainly be inconsistent. His short-termism and lack of
attention to detail would infuriate many. And he was indisputably
capable of saying different things to different people. In this, however, he
appeared to share a particular prime ministerial skill with his predecessor. On many occasions journalists had listened open-mouthed outside
No. 10 as Northern Ireland’s politicians left meetings with Major
absolutely convinced that the Prime Minister was on their side. Downing
Street seemed to have that effect on players from all sides.
However, from his earliest days as Opposition leader, Blair was telling
anyone who would listen that he would be firmly on the side of those
seeking an accommodation and an end to the conflict. Rather like in that
Iraq interview, he also gave notice that he would be in it for the long haul.
And, vitally, he made the policy adjustment that would give him the
prospect of succeeding where so many others had failed.
Few were paying much attention in September 1995 when Blair told
the Irish Times he expected Northern Ireland would prove ‘as important
an issue’ as any that would confront him in British politics.5 On the eve of
a trip to Dublin, Londonderry and Belfast he was hardly going to admit
that the British public were monumentally bored with the subject – or
that he would have ‘bigger fish to fry’ as an incoming Prime Minister following Labour’s eighteen years in opposition.
Yet that had been precisely the fear harboured in Dublin. Mo Mowlam,
the Opposition spokesperson who would become his first Secretary of
State for Northern Ireland, performed an important role in maintaining
Irish faith. During one encounter in the Travellers Club in London Blair
likewise assured senior NIO officials that he would be ‘free to act’ on
Northern Ireland and would not be ‘tied by party issues’ of the kind perceived to have inhibited Major.
15 Tony Blair interview, Irish Times, 4 September 1995.
This might have appeared to be a reference to the ‘High Tory Unionist’
tradition that found expression from time to time through people like
Viscount (Robert) Cranborne, then Conservative leader in the House of
Lords. It did not, however, portend a Labour lurch in an anti-unionist
direction. On the contrary, while Mowlam schmoozed nationalists and
republicans – and set the scene for the restoration of the IRA ceasefire and
Sinn Fein’s speedy admission to talks – Blair had already embarked on his
own charm offensive with the unionists.
Not yet reconciled to the principle of ‘consent’ – and thus Northern
Ireland’s right to say ‘No’ – republicans wanted Blair to assume the role
Major had declined, and act as a ‘persuader’ for Irish unity. In his Irish
Times interview Blair made clear he would be doing nothing of the sort.
Confirming his change in Labour’s ‘unity by consent’ policy, Blair said: ‘I
believe the most sensible role for us is to be facilitators, not persuaders in
this, not trying to pressure or push people towards a particular objective.’
Declaring himself ‘easy either way’ as to whether Northern Ireland stayed
in the United Kingdom or joined a united Ireland, he replied: ‘What I personally want to see is the wishes of the people there adhered to . . . If it is
their consent that matters, and their wishes that are uppermost, then that
is what I want to see implemented.’ He was also clear: ‘If I was to sit here
and say “well, I want to give effect to the wishes of the people of Northern
Ireland but I’m going to be in there trying to tell them they’ve got to unite
with the South”, the only result of that would be to incapacitate my government from playing a proper role.’
This was painful for supporters of Labour’s traditional Irish policy. But,
as with Iraq, so in respect of Northern Ireland it might prove even worse
than they thought. Some may have comforted themselves that Blair’s
policy shift was about presentation, the compulsion to tack to the Tory
position, the desperate need not to be seen or cast as ‘soft on terrorism’.
Others doubtless hoped there was ‘New Labour’ artifice here, designed to
lure unionists into negotiations in which they would inevi
tably lose
ground. In fact, Blair had set Labour on a path beyond ostensible ‘neutrality’ on Northern Ireland’s constitutional position to one of effective
support for maintaining the Union.
In observing this, it is not necessary to contend that Blair started out
from a position of high principle, or with a carefully considered plan. He
never planned his relationship with President George W. Bush, and obviously could not have known how the events of 9/11 would recast his entire
foreign policy. But few would doubt that he became a believer. In one
respect, indeed, it is possible that Blair’s war experiences reinforced his
:
sense of ‘the United Kingdom’. Even if for purely pragmatic and presentational reasons, Blair would also be able to argue that Northern Ireland
could not exclude itself from his government’s UK-wide devolution
project. And by the time the rising nationalist tide overwhelmed Labour
in Scotland in 2007, Blair, like Gordon Brown, was ever more insistent that
the Kingdom was greater than the sum of its parts.
Whatever his original motivation, Blair made Belfast the port of call
for his first official trip outside London following the 1997 general election. Fresh from electoral triumph, and plainly feeling anything but incapacitated, he assured his audience this was no accident: ‘I said before the
election that Northern Ireland was every bit as important to me as for my
predecessor. I will honour that pledge in full.’ Their destination was clear,
said Blair: ‘To see a fair political settlement in Northern Ireland – one that
lasts, because it is based on the will and consent of the people here.’ But so
too was the context. Assuring them that his agenda was ‘not a united
Ireland’, the young Prime Minister ventured to say that none in his audience were likely to see it in their lifetime. Then he declared: ‘Northern
Ireland is part of the United Kingdom, alongside England, Scotland and
Wales. The Union binds the four parts of the United Kingdom together.
I believe in the United Kingdom. I value the Union.’
This was music to the ears of Trimble, who had already decided Blair
was a man with whom he would do business. However, their subsequent