There is no way that we can have power sharing with republicans, who are subversives because they don't accept the existence of the state... There's nothing wrong with majority rule, Catholics have nothing to fear from Protestantism because Protestantism means liberty for everyone. - Fermanagh DUP councillor, 1981
The fall of the Sunningdale Agreement in 1974 marked the end of power-sharing government in Northern Ireland. The concept would not be successfully revived until the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. Since then it has firmly embedded itself as the only viable governing structure for the Six Counties despite virtually routine collapses and walkouts.
The Sunningdale Agreement emerged from the British government’s desire after the plug was pulled on the unionist regime at Stormont to stabilise the state by creating buy-in from the Catholic minority and undercutting support for the IRA. This meant guaranteeing a place in a new devolved administration for the SDLP, by then the largest nationalist party,
Today, Sunningdale is seen wistfully as the lost opportunity for a power-sharing resolution to the Northern Ireland conflict. SDLP deputy leader Séamus Mallon famously described the 1998 Agreement as 'Sunningdale for slow learners'. Many have noted the irony of Sinn Féin, once dedicated to overthrowing the state, leading an arrangement similar to Sunningdale.
What’s rarely acknowledged is unionist attitudes to power-sharing in the long interval between the first failed power-sharing experiment and the more durable arrangement established in 1998. Indeed, this omission is especially odd in that it was unionists who brought down Sunningdale in 1974.
Sunningdale
Infamously it was the Council of Ireland part of the Sunningdale package which helped galvanise ordinary unionists, but total opposition to power-sharing with nationalists was an integral part of anti-Sunningdale unionism. The bitter battle in late 1973 within the Official Unionist Party (OUP) between leader Brian Faulkner and malcontents led by Harry West was fought explicitly over power-sharing with nationalists.
Faulkner split from the OUP in early 1974 but his pro power-sharing Unionist Party of Northern Ireland saw little electoral success and by 1981 had formally dissolved. From the outside Sunningdale was assailed by the DUP and Bill Craig’s Vanguard, who joined with the OUP (now led by West) to oppose power-sharing under the United Ulster Unionist Council (UUUC) umbrella.
Post-Sunningdale the British government attempted to chart a new political settlement by announcing elections to a constitutional convention to be held in May 1975. Anti power-sharing candidates under the umbrella of the UUUC won a majority of seats.
Surprisingly, not long after the Convention began Craig reached out to the SDLP to probe the possibility of a “voluntary coalition” but his maverick move led to a bitter split in Vanguard and he was left nearly totally isolated. The remnants of Craig’s Vanguard merged into the OUP in 1978 and the following year Craig lost his East Belfast Westminster seat to the DUP’s Peter Robinson. Robinson, backed by the UDA, anchored his campaign on being the only candidate who had always totally rejected power-sharing with nationalists.
The Constitutional Convention Report, issued in November 1975, made it clear that power-sharing, not cross-border institutions, was the primary unionist objection to Sunningdale. The Report’s conclusion would be cited by both the OUP and DUP for years to come:
Accordingly this Convention concludes... That no country ought to be forced to have in its Cabinet any person whose political philosophy and attitudes have revealed his opposition to the very existence of that State.
This line was significant in that it excluded any nationalist politician, no matter how moderate, from a cabinet role in devolved government in Northern Ireland.
In Spring 1976 a final attempt was made by the British to reach a political agreement. In February, a meeting between the UUUC and SDLP lasted only an hour. The unionist delegation would not permit the SDLP in a cabinet under any circumstances. A further meeting in March ended in acrimony as the unionists called for the return to a unionist-dominated Stormont government.
Three days later, Merlyn Rees, then Secretary of State, announced the Convention was over.
Despair
Merlyn Rees was replaced as Secretary of State in August 1976 by Roy Mason, a former coalminer from Yorkshire who had no time for political initiatives and much preferred to get stuck into the IRA. The late 1970s under Direct Rule was a time of growing confidence for unionism with the IRA under pressure, the threat of British withdrawal fading and power-sharing with nationalists a dead issue. The shock and humiliation of the loss of Stormont in 1972 had also faded somewhat and structural Protestant supremacy in Northern Ireland was more or less intact in Northern Ireland under British Direct Rule.
In 1980 Secretary of State Humphrey Atkins attempted to restart talks between Northern Ireland’s political parties. The OUP didn’t even show up, and it quickly became clear that the DUP had no interest in sharing power with the SDLP.
Atkins was replaced by Tory “wet” Jim Prior who immediately set about trying to coax a political initiative to life. In 1982 Prior introduced his “rolling devolution” plan where powers would gradually be granted to to an executive, contingent on support from both unionists and nationalists.
The OUP were reticent, restrained by divisions between devolutionists and integrationists. Many within the OUP still instinctively supported a return to majority rule at Stormont but spearheaded by Enoch Powell integrationist (i.e. integrating with Britain) thought grew more influential especially when Jim Molyneaux became leader in 1979.
The party seemed to have decided that the best way to fend off the DUP threat was to out-Paisley the big man himself. An OUP devolutionist, Edgar Graham, said Unionists were opposed to power-sharing or any “Irish dimension”. Furthermore, beyond just principle, the SDLP couldn’t be trusted with cabinet responsibility.(1)
The OUP’s manifesto for the October Assembly election was a staid retreading of unionist orthodoxy. The tagline was “Into the Future In True Tradition” and the cover had a photo of Jim Molyneaux framed as the successor to Lord Brookeborough and James Craig:
...we have been equally consistent in refusing to enter into power-sharing with republicans and any Irish Dimension designed to facilitate Irish unification or the annexation of this part of the United Kingdom by the Irish Republic. And once again we will oppose any attempt to foist such options on the Ulster people.
The DUP’s manifesto stressed the party’s consistency in opposing power-sharing; “there will be no power-sharing nor Irish Dimension if the Assembly is controlled by those resolved to oppose these twin evils".
That 1982 election is now mostly remembered as the first electoral breakthrough for Provisional Sinn Féin as a party. The party’s manifesto urged voters to “Smash Stormont” and was full of withering attacks on the SDLP, dismissed power-sharing as impossible and claimed loyalists had rejected all attempts to achieve reform, justice, or a united Ireland, and since 1912 had resorted to force.[2] Election literature frequently referenced the previous year’s republican hunger strikers.
The SDLP opted to partake in the election but, against the instincts of some representatives, boycott the Assembly. Having participated in a slew of political ventures in the preceding decade and now unionists were again stating their refusal to share power, the SDLP felt it would be a waste of time.
The SDLP boycott was buttressed when following the October election OUP deputy leader Harold McCusker had his SDLP counterpart Seamus Mallon stripped of his Assembly seat as a result of legal proceedings over dual membership of the Irish Senate. Mallon described his disqualification as the “symbolic disbarment” of the SDLP from political life in Northern Ireland.
The months following the election were the SDLP’s lowest point so far. The unionist position was unassailable and the British government seemingly disinterested in the fate of constitutional nationalism. The SDLP began to seriously consider a kamikaze move where they would resign from all their Assembly seats, and the possibility of Sinn Féin taking them in by-elections didn’t seem to phase them.
At the end of the year the unionist Belfast Telegraph published an editorial pleading with Catholics “even in their black despair” not to abandon “constitutional nationalism in favour of militant republicanism”.[3]
No Surrender
Meanwhile, the tone of the new Assembly was set in a controversy where Harold McCusker was alleged to have rejected Alliance’s John Cushnahan as chairman of the education committee because he was a Catholic.[4] John Hume commented:
The revelation that the Official Unionist Party through its allegedly most liberal spokesman will not have a Catholic, even one who accepts the Union, as the powerless chairman of a powerless education committee, of the powerless assembly, comes as no surprise to the SDLP.
In May the Alliance Party put forward an amendment conditioning a devolved government on power-sharing between unionists and nationalists; the OUP and DUP united to vote it down. Appearing before the assembly the following month Prior insisted that any proposal for devolution must have substantial support from both sides of the community. In response, DUP Chief Whip Jim Allister gave a robust speech:
if the choice is between having a power sharing government with the SDLP and republicans and no government, then we have no difficulty in saying we would rather have no internal government. [5]
That following month opening an Orange Arch in Ballymena, Ian Paisley:
We must say to the Westminster Parliament, and to Jim Prior, that we will not tolerate John Hume and the SDLP governing us or telling us how to be governed.[6]
In March 1984 a European Parliament committee published the Haagerup Report on Northern Ireland. Alliance embraced the report, which favoured power-sharing, while unionists bitterly attacked its authors. Speaking shortly before its publication to an American audience, Alliance leader Oliver Napier said:
Unionist leaders... should also recognise that continued intransigence serves only to further increase alienation of the traditional minority in Northern Ireland.
"Power-sharing within Northern Ireland is not a proposal which would involve a sacrifice of principle on their part. The refusal to contemplate any solution on these lines has been one of the major factors which has resulted in the growth of Provisional Sinn Fein. [7]
But the two largest unionist parties were unbending. In April the OUP published its policy document on devolution, “The Way Forward”. The distaste for devolution amongst some senior members was evident. The report opened by quoting the crucial anti-power sharing line from the 1975 Convention report, before then re-envisioning Stormont as a glorified county council without a cabinet or legislative powers. A prominent young member of the OUP, Jeffrey Donaldson, came out in support of the blueprint describing it as “positive, realistic and constructive.”[8]
In September the DUP released their devolution policy document which similarly paraphrased the 1975 Convention report conclusion and made the novel argument that as anti power-sharing loyalists would be excluded from power-sharing, power-sharing could never be truly inclusive and was thus unworkable.
Meanwhile, the SDLP had ignored the Assembly and were instead investing their energies into Taoiseach Garret Fitzgerald’s New Ireland Forum. FitzGerald was alarmed at the SDLP’s slump following the Assembly election and (more urgently for him) Sinn Féin’s rise. Action needed to be taken to stabilise the SDLP.
Intensified dialogue between the British and Irish governments aiming to resolve the Northern Ireland problem unnerved unionists but a blunt public rejection of the findings of the report in late 1984 by Margaret Thatcher reassured them. By October 1985 it was evident that something was afoot and with a whiff of desperation Paisley and Molyneaux sent a letter to the Prime Minister signalling their readiness to talk about any “reasonable” proposal for a role for nationalists at Stormont short of actual minister jobs in a cabinet, meaning no power-sharing.
All changed, changed utterly
The Anglo-Irish Agreement was signed in November 1985 and for the first time institutionalised a consultative role for the Irish government in the internal affairs of Northern Ireland. The shock and anger of the unionist community was beyond even Thatcher’s own predictions.
For the first time since Stormont fell the British government had defied unionists and continued to do so by ignoring months of protests (and violence). Every previous political initiative in Ireland of the past century unionists had exercised a veto over. No more.
Kenneth Bloomfield, head of the Northern Ireland Civil Service, commented privately:
Unionists are now beginning to realise that the choice facing them is whether to preserve the union or preserve their ascendancy.
Senior members of the DUP, like Peter Robinson and Jim Allister, began to float the idea of unilaterally declaring Northern Ireland independent from the United Kingdom, following the example of Rhodesia. This thinking coincided with a spate of DUP militancy; invading the Monaghan town of Clontribret and establishing a new paramilitary grouping, Ulster Resistance.
However, by 1987 with the Anglo-Irish Agreement firmly in place, for the first time since Sunningdale there was creeping evidence of some unionist politicians, gingerly, starting to broach the power-sharing taboo.
In January the UDA’s political wing under John McMichael published the policy document “Common Sense” which called for a power-sharing administration with nationalists. It had been drafted with oversight from McMicahel’s unionist law lecturer ally David Trimble.
In July a joint OUP-DUP Taskforce established to consider alternatives to the Anglo-Irish Agreement published its findings. The reported, entitled an “An End to Drift” called for dialogue with Thatcher’s government and unionist leaders should indicate that “no matter” (the phrase was printed in bolt type) should be excluded from the agenda, a concession that opened up the possibility of power-sharing with nationalists and some sort of Irish dimension.
“An End to Drift” was highly controversial, with both unionist leaders distancing themselves from its contents. Later that month the Belfast Young Unionists put out a letter signed by their chairman Ian Paisley Jr. insisting that “both leaders have made it quite clear that power sharing is not an option.” [9] Paisley Sr. told gathered Independent Orangemen at Portlgenone that his party would never agree to power-sharing with the SDLP and that the likes of Seamus Mallon and John Hume in government in Northern Ireland was unacceptable.[10]
Yet, Peter Robinson continued to send signals about his willingness to talk about power-sharing and an Irish dimension through 1988. In October all of Northern Ireland’s major political parties secretly met at Duisburg in Germany. Sinn Féin were unofficially represented by priest Alec Reid.
The Anglo-Irish Agreement had catalysed a remarkable thawing in unionist politics. Before November 1985 the position of every unionist party and politician (discounting Alliance) had been total rejection of power-sharing with nationalists of any stripe. Merely eighteen months later prominent unionist figures were now doing a historic volte face.
Acceptance
At the beginning of 1990 yet another Secretary of State, Peter Brooke, made yet another attempt to kickstart a talks process. OUP MP John Taylor, tipped as the next OUP leader, was profiled by a Dublin newspaper where he declared himself amenable to power-sharing and an Irish dimension, even praising then Taoiseach Charles Haughey, a long-time unionist bogeyman.[11]
The maverick nature of this offer was highlighted when days earlier Jim Molyneaux received a standing ovation at an OUP Association meeting for totally repudiating any power-sharing administration.
The new political realities hadn’t fully filtered down to the grass roots; former senior SDLP man Paddy O’Hanlon privately told the Irish government that he believed a “sea change in unionist psychology” would take another decade at least. It would become evident in the ensuing talks that Molyneaux personally had little interest in a power-sharing devolved government.
The Brooke Talks followed in 1991 and 1992 and although unsuccessful broke new ground; nearly all major unionist and nationalist parties for the first time (officially) shared a room and unionists (including the DUP) talked to Dublin. No longer were unionist parties calling for the Anglo-Irish Agreement to be abolished ahead of talks, only suspended. The presence of the Irish government at talks was also accepted.
The missing piece was Sinn Féin, still isolated by IRA violence. This was resolved by the IRA declaring a ceasefire in 1994.
Eventually following a second IRA ceasefire the Good Friday Agreement emerged in 1998 helmed by David Trimble’s OUP and the SDLP. The content of the deal was broadly familiar; power-sharing between unionists and nationalists with an Irish dimension.
Turnabout
David Trimble came under siege from within and without. Externally, the DUP and the smaller UKUP splinter party. Internally, Trimble’s own MPs turned against the deal, including hardliner Willie Ross, vocally opposed to power-sharing. They were joined by younger figures like Jeffrey Donaldson and young hardliners nicknamed the “Baby Barristers”.
Critics of the Agreement focused on emotive issues like Sinn Féin’s inclusion and the release of paramilitary prisoners but power-sharing with nationalists wasn’t off the radar. Ian Paisley said during the referendum campaign:
[I am] opposed to power-sharing with nationalists because nationalists are only power-sharing to destroy Northern Ireland.
Peter Weir, a high-profile “Baby Barrister” who later defected to the DUP defended his opposition to the Agreement in a Twitter exchange with John Taylor in 2019:
Power sharing John was never the problem it was the early release of terrorists, the lack of certainty on decommissioning and the vulnerable position it placed the RUC in.
We in the Ulster Unionist Party are fundamentally opposed to "power-sharing", in large part, because it is a complete contradiction of democracy... we must remember that to share power with Nationalists is an abrogation of our Unionist and democratic principles.
We must never forget that these people represent everything that we are are opposed to. If they held power in Northern Ireland they would destroy everything we believe in, and everything that we stand for. They are our enemies, and we simply cannot give them positions or platforms of power and influence.[12]
In that same magazine a future unionist leader and First Minister, Arlene Kelly, set out her opposition to power-sharing with the SDLP:
It should not be forgotten that the SDLP is a nationalist party, which wishes to see the demise of the state of Northern Ireland. They have no desire to be full citizens of the United Kingdom, and should therefore be denied the perks of this citizenship. They cannot have their cake and eat it, although they invariably do, often with the help of so-called unionists.[12]
It’s certainly possible for someone to undergo a political transformation. Four, five years is not a trivial length of time especially when you’re young. But it’s curious that two unionist figures who were railing against power-sharing with the SDLP in the early 1990s who then went on to oppose a power-sharing deal with the SDLP that same decade, would later assert that power-sharing was a non-factor in their opposition.
The ultimate irony of course is that those who had spent the ‘70s, ‘80s, and ‘90s professing a principled stand against power-sharing with even the moderate SDLP would then jump into power-sharing with political wing of the Provisional IRA. What was it all for?
Slow learners indeed.
References:
[1] Belfast Telegraph, 17 February 1982.
[2] Derry Journal, 08 October 1982.
[3] Belfast Telegraph, 31 December 1982.
[4] Belfast Telegraph, 2 December 1982.
[5] Belfast Newsletter, 30 June 1983.
[6] Ballymena Observer, 7 July 1983.
[7] Belfast Newsletter, 17 March 1983.
[8] Belfast Newsletter, 1 May 1984)
[9] Belfast Newsletter, 27 July 1987.
[10] Belfast Newsletter, 13 August 1987.
[11] Irish Independent, 13 February 1990.
[12] Ulster Review, Issue 11.
⏩Bleakley is currently living in the south of Ireland. Covid-19 boredom spurred an interest in the nitty gritty of Irish history.
Good article Bleakley, time changes everything. I remember the 80's and the mass protests at City Hall, the "Ulster Says No" one with gobshite at the fore. The whole mood was definitely of 'No' to any involvement from the South due to the perception that all bombs and weapons used against our people came up from the south and Dublin did sweet fuck all to stop it. Any attempt by any Nationalist party to push it was viewed as typical treason from them-and the Shinners were just the mouth of the Provos so it was expected of them.
ReplyDeleteThe GFA changed everything though, especially the quarantine period and self disarming by the Provisionals. Near 30 years later the Shinners are in charge with a Dupper sidekick and they actually look like they can work together (early days indeed). If Shakespeare could see Irish politics he'd have plenty of new material!
Thanks Steve.
DeleteThere was a lot more material I could have included but decide to cut for sake of length. It should be acknowledged that a minority of unionists who did support power-sharing per polling were there in the 70s/80s/90s and found expression in the Alliance party, which usually captured near 10% of the electorate.
The growing appetite for a political settlement in Northern Ireland's (mostly unionist) business community in the early '90s was also a factor.
I think the 1975 convention was the big fork in the road. Having reasserted themselves by defeating Sunningdale there was an opportunity for unionist politicians to be magnanimous and try and stabilise NI. Bill Craig had the foresight but was eviscerated by his own party and others, most cynically by Ian Paisley who had privately warmed to Craig's idea of a voluntary coalition with the SDLP before publicly throwing him under the bus. Craig’s ally David Trimble was the man who finally did the business in 1998.
Shame for unionism there wasn’t the strategic foresight to cut a deal with the SDLP then from a position of strength. Jeffrey Donaldson seems to get it now.
Great piece Bleakley. Loved the quote from Bloomfield and enjoyed your closing line. Ultimately Unionism's supremacist antics were unsustainable.
ReplyDeleteIt is a quality piece. Bloomfield got to the crux of the dilemma for unionism.
DeleteYes, a fair record of Unionists grappling with Nationalism. Their majority status enabled a complacency about reaching an agreed future with Nationalists. And political jockeying amongst Unionists reinforced that.
ReplyDeleteThe demographic reality was able to open them up to seeing both the Irish and British communities had a right to an equal share in NI's future. That, and the failure of the IRA's war to force a UI.
But is power-sharing really a principle in the heart of Nationalists/Republicans? Or is it just a tactic to enhance their position until they gain majority status, after which majority-rule will become the standard? If so, What was it all for? To exchange one alienated minority in NI for another in a UI?
I hope we have all learned the rightness and value of power--sharing in a divided people.
Good to see you back wolfie
DeleteAgreed Steve - Wolfie always makes a valuable contribution.
DeleteThe great unwashed are being diddled along as the ' Chatterbox ' and Penwalley plus the rest of the circus strut their stuff in the foothills where the few bob will be sorted in the greasy till. Meanwhile, in the highlands, where the air is rare the serious movers and shakers get on with the ' real ' business.
ReplyDeletea concise summary of what is
Delete