Margaret Thatcher: The Authorized Biography, Volume 2

by Charles Moore

  Mrs Thatcher then raised a point which struck at the heart of the whole process. Whatever emerged as the best way of governing Northern Ireland, she said, must arise from agreement between the two communities, rather than by intergovernmental fiat: ‘the Anglo-Irish consultations were not the appropriate place to try to establish a structure of Government in Northern Ireland.’111 The prospect of devolved government gave the communities strong incentive to agree, she went on. ‘But one had to ask oneself seriously: was the animosity so fundamental that agreement would never be attained?’ There was no meeting of minds between the two prime ministers. As Mrs Thatcher put it, in retirement, ‘What we wanted they couldn’t have, and what they wanted we couldn’t have.’112 All they could share was a general expression of the need for progress. ‘The essence was to take a step forward,’ Mrs Thatcher said, even if this was a more modest one than the Republic wanted.

  In its combative frankness, the meeting was not unlike the famous one with Mikhail Gorbachev which was to take place, also in Chequers, less than a month later (see Chapter 8). And although FitzGerald described himself as ‘rather depressed’113 by the discussion, it may in fact have helped clarify the positions of both sides. Little noticed because of the heat of the prime ministerial discussions, the official British response to the Irish speaking note of 11 November made some concessions that were useful to Dublin. It abandoned the idea that devolution would have to be the prelude to any Anglo-Irish deal, thus removing the Unionist power of ‘veto’.* The right for the Irish government to be consulted in the formulation of policy in Northern Ireland, in return for amendment of their Constitution, remained on offer. At the plenary session later in the day, Mrs Thatcher ended the conversation positively. ‘We like you,’ she told FitzGerald. ‘We’re now tackling the problem in detail for the first time.’114 The parties broke up agreeing, as always, that Armstrong–Nally would continue. There was certainly no euphoria, but neither was there despair.

  The drama arose because of the press conference. It had been decided that each prime minister would give a separate one in his or her own country. FitzGerald was therefore flying back to Dublin while Mrs Thatcher was speaking. Irish television asked her whether she had ruled out the recommendations of the Forum report. Mrs Thatcher answered with her customary bluntness:

  a unified Ireland was one solution [in the report] that is out. A second solution was confederation of two states. That is out. A third solution was joint authority. That is out. That is a derogation from sovereignty. We made that quite clear when the report was published. Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom.115

  Strictly speaking, Mrs Thatcher was saying nothing which she had not said in public before. By restating it, she was not attempting to embarrass FitzGerald. But her emphatic style and her love of repetition – ‘out … out … out’ – were too eloquent not to provoke a frenzy of reaction. As Douglas Hurd, who noticed a similar effect at numerous summits, observed, ‘It wasn’t what she said to the foreigners. It was what she said when she got out into the open air … It was like the Grand National: a certain excitement took charge.’116 In the view of Richard Ryan* of the Irish Embassy in London, the fault lay not with Mrs Thatcher but with her minders.

  If Prior, and not Hurd, had been sitting beside her, she would have been kicked on the ankle after the first of her ‘Out … Out … Out’ sequence. She can be handled, but there is none around her at present to do it. We [the Irish side] should try to build into the next stage a mechanism between officials in order to get her statements framed with a measure of care … What about recruiting Howe to work on her?117

  Poor FitzGerald returned to a storm in Dublin. The Irish Times said: ‘She is as offhand and patronising as she is callous and imperious.’118 Michael Lillis, who acknowledged Mrs Thatcher’s lack of malicious intent, considered that she ‘created a horrific problem for FitzGerald … it nearly ended his leadership.’119 The episode reinforced Irish doubts about FitzGerald’s ability to deal with Mrs Thatcher. ‘There was a sense in the Irish electorate that he wouldn’t be tough enough for Thatcher … to the outside observer we had been beaten up.’120 The British Ambassador in Dublin reported ‘the widespread impression that Dr FitzGerald has been subservient to the Prime Minister and has failed to achieve anything by it’.121 Needless to say, the Unionists were delighted by this turn of events, and Enoch Powell wrote to Mrs Thatcher to congratulate her on her handling of the summit. Back in London, Robert Armstrong was in despair: ‘I really thought “This is it.” ’122 Inevitably, the Taoiseach hit back. In remarks which, he said, were misrepresented, FitzGerald was reported as telling his parliamentary party in private session that Mrs Thatcher’s words had been ‘gratuitously offensive’.123* Now it was her turn to get annoyed.124 She refused to send a conciliatory letter to FitzGerald which the Foreign Office had drafted for her.

  FitzGerald wrote to Mrs Thatcher a pained but courteous letter, more in sorrow than in anger. He begged her to acknowledge the Forum report’s virtue in recognizing the needs of Unionism and to admit the problem of ‘alienation’ of the minority, the concept she so much disliked.125 A few days later, Robert Armstrong followed up these demands, taking FitzGerald’s part and suggesting that she write to him to say that she regretted if her manner at the press conference ‘has created difficulties for him at home’.126 On this Mrs Thatcher, who was always acutely aware of the danger of apologies in politics, wrote ‘Certainly NOT’: ‘The whole proposal is too contrived and apologetic. Why?’

  Such was the pressure from officials and ministers alike, however (Charles Powell recalled that Geoffrey Howe remained ‘very reproachful’ for years to come),127 that Mrs Thatcher bent slightly with the wind. On 29 November, she sent a letter to FitzGerald. ‘I share your concern’, she told him, ‘that my references to the Forum Report and the situation of the minority community in Northern Ireland have been taken totally out of context.’128 She still refused to accept the word ‘alienation’, but she agreed that some in the minority community ‘do not have confidence in the system of authority and law and order … and therein lies the problem which both of us are trying to resolve.’

  Rather against her will (‘I will if he wishes – but I really think the less said the better’),129 she agreed to meet FitzGerald in the margins of the European Council on 3 December, in Dublin Castle. There she told him that ‘she found it difficult to understand the reaction in the Republic to her press conference’.130 As Charles Powell acidly recorded, FitzGerald ‘continued that there was no point in going back over what had happened at the press conference. He then proceeded to do precisely that.’ In response, according to Powell’s account, Mrs Thatcher said that ‘one thing was clear, one had to develop an extra sensitivity for commenting on the Irish problem. Her own style was to give a direct answer to a direct question.’ FitzGerald again begged her, for her scheduled press conference at the end of the summit, to say something nice about the Forum report and to recognize the problems of the minority in the North. She refused, saying that she did not want ‘to give the impression of backing down’,131 but the two parted amicably.* Dermot Nally thought: ‘She was feeling rather guilty about the damage she felt she had done and did her best to make it up to him. When she came over she told him, “Garret, I am doing the best I can. I have been going around all day with a smile on my face.” ’132

  In retrospect, FitzGerald came to the view that Mrs Thatcher’s ‘out … out … out-burst’ (as some wit called it) had actually been helpful to him. He told Geoffrey Howe that it had helped him convince his Cabinet just how great the difficulties were.133

  David Goodall agreed. This moment, he believed, had been ‘a watershed’. Until then, the Irish had thought they would succeed in getting joint authority. After it, they knew they must settle for less.134 There is also a psychological point to be made. Mrs Thatcher was one of those people who hate directly admitting error. She believed, probably correctly, that if she did so, her male colleagues (she had
no female ones) would seize on it as a sign of weakness. But this does not mean that she was always unaware when she had made mistakes. Her actions after ‘out … out … out’ suggest that she did inwardly recognize that she had gone too far. From then on, she was never as strident on the subject again. It became more likely that there would be an Anglo-Irish agreement.

  It may not have been a complete coincidence that Mrs Thatcher’s reconciliation with FitzGerald occurred in the same month as her visit to Camp David to see President Reagan (see Chapter 8). Although the East–West debates bulked much larger in her mind than the problems of Northern Ireland, she was conscious of American interest in the subject. She also knew that she would be returning to Washington in February 1985, where she had been given the honour of addressing both Houses of Congress. While her central theme would be her support for SDI research, she understood that some conciliatory words on Ireland would be expected.

  In advance of the Camp David meeting, Reagan came under pressure from his own Irish lobby. Speaker Tip O’Neill wrote to Reagan asking him to ‘encourage Mrs Thatcher to renew the Anglo-Irish dialogue over the Forum Report’, citing strong support for this in Congress.135 Reagan always paid careful attention to O’Neill, whose support he needed for bipartisan purposes, but there is little evidence that he actually did anything very much in this case.* Reagan’s own officials’ note of their encounter shows that it was Mrs Thatcher, not the President, who raised the matter:

  Mrs Thatcher said she wished to address the situation in Northern Ireland. Despite reports to the contrary, she and Garret FitzGerald were on good terms and were making progress … The President said making progress is important, and observed that there is great Congressional interest in this matter. Indeed, Tip O’Neill had sent him a personal letter, asking him to appeal to Mrs Thatcher to be reasonable and forthcoming.136

  By mentioning O’Neill’s letter, but not endorsing it, Reagan did what O’Neill had asked, but distanced himself from it.

  In the run-up to her speech to Congress two months later (see Chapter 8), Mrs Thatcher was urged by British Embassy officials in Washington to ‘introduce America … to the fact that there was a new era of co-operation between the Irish government and ours’.137 She also saw Reagan again, and at lunch in the Oval Office linked her good relations with FitzGerald with their common purpose against terrorism:

  The Prime Minister said that she greatly admired the way in which Dr FitzGerald was fighting the IRA. He had the day before put through emergency legislation to seize IRA funds. She intended to continue her dialogue in Northern Ireland based on consent … The Prime Minister thanked the President warmly for the United States’ readiness to negotiate to remove the political offence exception from extradition legislation.138

  When she addressed both Houses after lunch, Mrs Thatcher did as she had been advised, and emphasized the common front between Britain and the Republic: ‘Garret FitzGerald and I will continue to consult together in the quest for stability and peace in Northern Ireland and we hope we will have your continued support for our joint efforts to find a way forward.’139 This was not a central part of her extremely successful speech, but it was, of course, well received. It made it that much harder for her to break out of the process of Anglo-Irish negotiation. Expectations were rising.

  Meanwhile, after what David Goodall called the ‘merciful pause’ of Christmas 1984, British officials had reassembled to take matters forward. The greater sense, post-Chequers, of realism on both sides now meant that the British were readier to accept that a referendum on revising Articles 2 and 3 was unlikely, and the Irish were less pressing about joint authority. But dangers remained from the British point of view, partly because the Irish, to whom the whole business mattered more, were more fertile than London in coming up with ideas. Mrs Thatcher did not bend her mind to the right alternative form of words about the Union which the Irish should concede in any agreement.

  The Irish were more focused. The Republic wanted to alter what it saw as a Protestant bias in the RUC and the Ulster Defence Regiment,* and promoted the idea of ‘mixed’ or ‘joint’ courts. Because of the problems of intimidation in Northern Ireland, terrorist cases were heard by ‘Diplock’ courts (established after a report recommending them by the law lord Lord Diplock), in which a judge, without a jury, sat alone. FitzGerald wanted these replaced by courts with a panel of judges, at least one of whom would be drawn from the Republic. Another notion emerging from the Irish side was that, if an agreement was signed, there could be an early release of some terrorists from prison. Even Geoffrey Howe, of all senior ministers the most enthusiastic for an agreement, returned from a trip to Dublin with Douglas Hurd and reported to Mrs Thatcher that ‘there is still a significant gap to be bridged.’140 Frightened about rising newspaper speculation, he asked Mrs Thatcher to point out to FitzGerald ‘the need for great caution if our dialogue is not to create more problems in Northern Ireland than it solves’.141 She duly did so, but by this time, despite all the anxieties, the process towards an agreement was beginning to seem ineluctable.

  On 24 April, the Cabinet sub-committee OD (I) met to discuss the suggestions now put forward by Howe and Hurd. A basis of agreement was ‘now discernible’,142 and a working text existed. The Irish had come to recognize, said the Howe–Hurd paper, that they could not have an executive role in the government of Northern Ireland, but could be ‘consulted on a formal basis though because of Irish sensitivities, the proposed text does not use the term “consultative” ’. Mrs Thatcher put an angry squiggle underneath this very Irish ambiguity. The Irish would not formally amend their Constitution, but, as part of any agreement, would make a ‘constitutional declaration’ about the status of Northern Ireland changing only by consent. The combination of the consultative role in return for the constitutional declaration was the ‘basic equation’ about which both sides had talked for so long, though both elements remained pretty vague.

  The Agreement, said Howe and Hurd, would bring Britain ‘important gains on four fronts’ – in dealings with the SDLP, with the Unionists, in security co-operation and in international image, especially in ‘American goodwill’.143 Unless there was an ‘Irish dimension’, the SDLP would go on ‘resisting participation in the political institutions of the province’. The document stated that ‘We gain nothing if we secure the support of the SDLP only at the price of losing the Unionists.’ Mrs Thatcher put an arrow of emphasis beside this. But it then went on to argue that if the Unionists did not give anything to the minority, ‘the alternative may be further development of the inter-governmental relationship’ – a move which would surely ‘lose’ the Unionists completely.

  In a note covering the Howe–Hurd paper, Charles Powell told Mrs Thatcher that she would need ‘a firm undertaking from the Irish Government that John Hume and the SDLP will cooperate in moves towards devolution [after any agreement was signed]. (This may be the most difficult, but I don’t see how you can go ahead without it.)’144 The trouble was that the Irish government, despite its closeness to John Hume, was in no position to give such an undertaking, so the main political premise of a possible agreement was insecure. OD (I) went ahead all the same, however. The next day it agreed that the British document be put to the Irish.

  Mrs Thatcher continued to worry about the obvious asymmetry in the process. Early in June, she pointed out to Douglas Hurd how dangerous it would be to be locked into an agreement if it started to function badly: ‘This was particularly important in that the United Kingdom concession – a consultative role for the Republic – was incorporated in the agreement, but the potential benefits for the United Kingdom – improved security cooperation and SDLP participation – were not.’145

  At the same time, British worries about the possible reaction of the Unionists grew. They had been deliberately excluded from the process, whereas the SDLP had been kept informed by the Irish government. The record suggests that there was remarkably little discussion about this: it is as if the two g
overnments naturally assumed that it should be so. FitzGerald initially disliked negotiating over the heads of Unionists. He saw them as fellow Irishmen, but believed that they ‘were totally intransigent … They never identified their own interests.’146 In Robert Armstrong’s view, the Unionists were ‘not affected’147 by the proposed agreement, by which he meant that the Union itself was not affected. It was an intergovernmental agreement that was being discussed. Therefore it was none of their business. According to Charles Powell, their exclusion worried Mrs Thatcher,148 but even she seems not to have wanted to take the Unionists into her confidence. She knew, of course, the reaction she would encounter if she did, and the certainty of leaks. Besides, for her, ‘The concept of the Union mattered more than the people’:149 she believed that she could defend the Union herself without the tiresome Unionist leaders. Her reluctance to talk to them partly stemmed from her surprisingly strong dislike of unpleasant scenes, but the decision to keep the Unionists almost completely in the dark was pregnant with trouble. As David Goodall – just as ‘green’ as Armstrong, but less ruthless – put it, the exclusion of the Unionists was ‘uncomfortable and indeed unfair’.150 It was bound to come back and bite the British government later.

  It was Douglas Hurd and the Northern Ireland Office who insisted that more thought should be given to the Unionists. Hurd pressed Mrs Thatcher to override the Irish view that the Unionists should be told ‘as little as possible’.151 Later, he offered to tell Jim Molyneaux more about the negotiations on Privy Council terms,* but Molyneaux, warned against this by Enoch Powell, refused. Hurd did, however, see both Molyneaux and Ian Paisley (who was not a privy councillor) to outline the progress of the talks. Both declared themselves totally opposed to what they gathered was happening. Mrs Thatcher became increasingly anxious about anything which conceded any judicial or security power to the Republic.