The Downing Street Years (69 page)

Nevertheless, discussions with the Irish continued through the first half of 1985. In January they agreed to begin detailed consideration of an agreement on the basis of a British draft, based on the idea of consultation rather than joint authority. But more and more leaks appeared about proposals on joint courts and joint policing from the Irish side. This worsened Unionist distrust still further.

In our discussions with the Irish of a joint Anglo-Irish body as a framework for consultation there was a succession of misunderstandings and disagreements. Although the idea of amending Articles 2 and 3 was clearly now off the agenda, we pressed the Irish for some kind of firm declaration committing them to the principle that unification could only come about with the consent of the majority in Northern Ireland. We hoped that such a declaration would reassure the Unionists,
to the extent that such a thing was possible. The Irish wanted the proposed joint body to have a much bigger say over economic and social matters in the North than we were prepared to concede. Nor did the gains we could hope for on security become any clearer. I found myself constantly toning down the commitments which were put before me in our own draft proposals, let alone being prepared to accept those emanating from Dublin. If the arrangements worked badly we must leave ourselves a retreat. In early June I insisted that there should be a review mechanism built into the Anglo-Irish Agreement. I also continued to resist Irish pressure for joint courts and SDLP demands for radical changes in the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) and the RUC.

When I met Dr FitzGerald at the Milan European Council on the morning of Saturday 29 June 1985 he said that he was prepared to have the Irish Government state publicly that there could be no change in the status of Northern Ireland without the consent of the majority of the people and acknowledge the fact that this consent did not exist. He was prepared to have a special Irish task force sent to the south side of the border to strengthen security. He was also prepared to have Ireland ratify the European Convention on the Suppression of Terrorism (ECST). But he was still pressing for joint courts, changes in the RUC and the UDR…to be announced as ‘confidence-building measures’, rather than as part of the agreement itself… and now added the proposal for a major review of sentences for terrorist prisoners if the violence was brought to an end. It remained to be seen whether he could deliver on his promises. But in any case the demands were still unrealistic, as I told him. I could go no further than considering the possibility of joint courts: I was certainly not going to give an assurance in advance that they would be established. I considered a review of sentences quite out of the question and he did not press the point. I warned him that announcing measures on policing at the same time as the Anglo-Irish Agreement would cause a sharp Unionist reaction and jeopardize the whole position.

At this point Dr FitzGerald became very agitated. He declared that unless the minority in Northern Ireland could be turned against the IRA, Sinn Fein would gain the upper hand in the North and provoke a civil war which would drag the Republic down as well, with Colonel Gaddafi providing millions to help this happen. A sensible point was being exaggerated to the level of absurdity. I said that of course I shared his aim of preventing Ireland falling under hostile and tyrannical forces. But that was not an argument for taking measures which would simply provoke the Unionists and cause unnecessary trouble.

By the time our meeting ended, however, I felt that we were some way towards an agreement, though there were still points to resolve. I also knew that a lot of progress had been made in the official talks, so I had good reason to believe that a successful conclusion was possible. Dr FitzGerald and I even discussed the timing and place of the signing ceremony.

At two o’clock on the afternoon of Friday 15 November Garret FitzGerald and I signed the Anglo-Irish Agreement at Hillsborough Castle in Northern Ireland. It was not perfect from either side’s point of view. Article 1 of the agreement affirmed that any change in the status of Northern Ireland would only come about with the consent of a majority of the people of Northern Ireland and recognized that the present wish of that majority was for no change in the status of the province. I believed that this major concession by the Irish would reassure the Unionists that the Union itself was not in doubt. I thought that given my own well-known attitude towards Irish terrorism they would have confidence in my intentions. I was wrong about that. But the Unionists miscalculated too. The tactics which they used to oppose the agreement…a general strike, intimidation, flirting with civil disobedience…worsened the security situation and weakened their standing in the eyes of the rest of the United Kingdom.

The agreement allowed the Irish Government to put forward views and proposals on matters relating to Northern Ireland in a wide range of areas, including security. But it was made clear that there was no derogation from the sovereignty of the United Kingdom. It was for us, not the Irish, to make the decisions. There was no commitment to do anything more than consider the possibility of mixed courts. If there was devolution in Northern Ireland, which the agreement committed us to work for, those areas of policy devolved would be taken out of the hands of the Anglo-Irish Inter-Governmental Conference. (Garret FitzGerald, showing some courage, publicly accepted this implication of the agreement at the press conference which followed the signing.) The agreement itself would be subject to review at the end of three years or earlier if either Government requested. The Taoiseach also said that it was the intention of his Government to accede as soon as possible to the ECST.

The real question now was whether the agreement would result in better security. The strong opposition of the Unionists would be a major obstacle. By contrast, international…most importantly American…reaction was very favourable. Above all, however, we hoped for a more co-operative attitude from the Irish Government, security forces and courts. If we got this the agreement would be successful. We would have to wait and see.

One person who was not going to wait was Ian Gow. I spent some time trying to persuade him not to go but he insisted on resigning as a Treasury minister. This was a personal blow to me, though I am glad to say that the friendship between the two of us and our families was barely affected. Ian was one of the very few who resigned from my Government on a point of principle. I respected him as much as I disagreed with him.

By the end of the year, however, I had become very worried about the Unionist reaction. It was worse than anyone had predicted to me. Of the legitimate political leaders, Ian Paisley was in the forefront of the mass campaign against the agreement. But far more worrying was the fact that behind him and other leaders stood harder and more sinister figures who might all too easily cross the line from civil disobedience to violence. As I told Dr FitzGerald when I saw him on the morning of Tuesday 3 December in Luxemburg, it was now vital to show immediate practical results from the agreement, particularly as regards security co-operation, Irish accession to the ECST and a co-operative attitude by the SDLP to devolution. But now, as later, it seemed to me that he could not grasp how important it was to achieve the support or at least the acquiescence of the Unionist majority.

Shortly before the agreement, Tom King had taken over as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. Tom was initially highly sceptical about the value of the agreement…indeed within weeks of taking office he had sent me a minute arguing that the balance of the agreement as drafted was heavily in favour of the Irish…though he later became more enthusiastic. Both of us agreed that the political priority was to win over the support of at least some Unionist leaders and that wider Unionist opinion which I felt was probably more understanding of what we were trying to achieve. I was convinced that the people who met me on my visits to Northern Ireland could harbour no doubts about my commitment to their safety and freedom. Indeed, this was confirmed for me when I invited nonpolitical representatives of the majority community from business and the professions to lunch at No. 10 on Wednesday 5 February 1986. Their view was that for many
people the real concerns in Northern Ireland were with jobs, housing, education…in short the sort of issues which are at the centre of politics on the mainland. I was also confirmed in my impression that one of the problems of Northern Irish politics was that it no longer attracted enough people of high calibre.

I invited Jim Molyneaux and Ian Paisley to Downing Street on the morning of Tuesday 25 February. I told them that I believed that they underestimated the advantages which the agreement offered, both in the reaffirmation of Northern Ireland’s status within the United Kingdom and in terms of cross-border security co-operation. I recognized that they were bitter at not having been consulted during the negotiation of the agreement. I offered to devise a system which would allow full consultation with them in future and which would not just be confined to matters discussed in the Anglo-Irish Inter-Governmental Conference. Security, for example, could be included. I also said that we were prepared in principle to sit down at a round-table conference with the parties in Northern Ireland to consider, without any preconditions, the scope for devolution. Third, we were ready for consultations with the Unionist parties on the future of the existing Northern Ireland Assembly and on the handling of Northern Ireland business at Westminster. I made it plain that I would not agree to even temporary suspension of the Anglo-Irish Agreement, but the agreement would be operated ‘sensitively’. At the time this seemed to go down well. I went on to warn of the damage which would be done if the proposed general strike in Northern Ireland on 3 March took place. Ian Paisley said that he and Jim Molyneaux knew nothing of the plans. They would reach their decisions when they had considered the outcome of the present meeting. It was a reasonably successful meeting. But the following day after they had consulted their supporters in Northern Ireland they came out in support of the strike.

Nor did I find the SDLP any more co-operative. I saw John Hume in my room in the House of Commons on the afternoon of Thursday 27 February. I urged that the SDLP should give more open support to the security forces, but to no avail. He seemed more interested to score points at the expense of the Unionists. A few days later I wrote to Garret FitzGerald urging him to get the SDLP to adopt a more sensible and statesman-like approach.

But by now Dr FitzGerald and his colleagues in Dublin were adding their own fuel to the flames, publicly exaggerating the powers which the Irish had obtained through the agreement, a tactic which was of course entirely self-defeating. Nor, in spite of detailed criticisms and suggestions, could we get the Irish to make the required improvements
in their own security. The Irish judicial authorities were proving no more co-operative either, having sent back warrants for the arrest and extradition of Evelyn Glenholmes from the Irish Republic on suspicion of involvement in terrorism because, among other things, they claimed that a full stop was missing.

In any case, Garret FitzGerald’s Government’s own position was weakening. In spite of our representations, he was back-tracking on his commitment to get the European Convention on the Suppression of Terrorism though the Dâil. His Government was now in a minority and he told us that he was under pressure to accept the requirement that we should make a
prima facie
case before extradition to the United Kingdom was granted. This would actually have worsened the situation on extradition, reviving past difficulties which recent Irish judge-made law had overcome. Dr FitzGerald told us that he was resisting the pressure, but it soon became clear that he was seeking a
quid pro quo.
He wanted us to introduce three-judge courts for terrorist trials in Northern Ireland. Following a meeting with the Taoiseach in Dublin, Tom King brought forward a paper supporting the idea, which Geoffrey Howe and Douglas Hurd also backed. But the lawyers were outraged and my sympathies lay with them. I did not believe that there was a case for three-judge courts, nor did I see why we should make concessions to get the Irish Government to carry out its commitments. The proposal was turned down at a ministerial meeting at the beginning of October 1986.

In the end Dr FitzGerald managed to pass his legislation, but with the proviso that it would not come into effect unless the Dáil passed a further resolution a year later, which stored up trouble for the future. Shortly afterwards, in January 1987, his Coalition Government collapsed and the subsequent election brought Charles Haughey back to the office of Taoiseach. This heralded more difficulties. Mr Haughey and his Party had opposed the agreement, though his formal position was now that he would be prepared to make it work. I knew, though, that he felt much less commitment to it and I suspected that he would be prepared to play up to Republican opinion in the South more than had his predecessor.

The security position in the province had also worsened. I received a report from George Younger on the strength of the IRA north and south of the border which convinced me that a new drive against them was necessary. There was a rising trend of violence, particularly against personnel in the security forces, and cross-border co-operation was still not effective. The scale of the supplies of arms being received by the IRA, on which we already had a good deal of intelligence, was
confirmed by the interception of the
Eksund…
with its hoard of Libyan arms…by French customs in October.

I was at the reception which follows the Remembrance Day Service at the Cenotaph when I received news that a bomb had exploded at Enniskillen in County Fermanagh. It had been planted yards away from the town War Memorial in an old school building, part of which collapsed on the crowd which had assembled for the service. Eleven people were killed, and more than sixty injured. No warning was given.