Dean Godson - Himself Alone - David Trimble and the Ordeal Of Unionism

The reason for the British state’s curiosity was that Trimble had immediately begun an almost Gorbachevian whirligig of activity. This was not so much antithetical to their interests as it was unpredictable. For if he had a detailed game plan, he certainly shared it with very few people, though the broad outlines – scrapping the AIA, regaining a measure of local control through devolved institutions, and ending the marginalisation of Unionism – were well enough understood. The frenetic round of meetings had been implicit in his Ulster Hall election speech, where he pledged to go anywhere, anytime to promote the Unionist cause (the only exception turned out to be the Forum on Peace and Reconciliation in Dublin, which he declined to attend on the grounds that it was a ‘nationalist body’). 14 His priority, as he saw it, was to free Unionism from ideological taboos which restricted its freedom of manoeuvre – such as the terms on which Unionist leaders could go to Dublin to talk to the Irish Government. The first opportunity to do this presented itself on the Monday following his election. Notwithstanding his unhappiness over Trimble’s election, one of the UUP’s best-known left-wingers, Chris McGimpsey, contacted Glengall Street with some important information. His fellow progressive, Proinsias de Rossa, the Irish Social Welfare Minister, was in town for one of his regular meetings with his colleagues in Democratic Left. Would a meeting be possible? 15

This suggestion was, in the Northern Irish context, less improbable than it might at first glance appear. Democratic Left had emerged from the split in the old Workers’ Party, once the political wing of the Official IRA. These previously pro-Moscow Marxists were arguably the most anti-nationalist political force on both sides of the border and had been deadly rivals of the Provisionals (who had split from them in 1970–1). Many of them regarded the Provisionals as fascists, and the Provisionals reciprocated their loathing, accusing the ‘Stickies’ (as the Officials were nicknamed) of betrayal of national ideals. Prior to embracing constitutional politics, de Rossa himself had been a republican activist: in May 1957, he was arrested at Glencree in the Wicklow mountains, was remanded and then sentenced to two months’ imprisonment for declining to account to the Gardai for his movements – a crime under the Offences Against the State Act. Whilst in Mountjoy jail, the southern Government introduced internment against the IRA, which had begun an unsuccessful border campaign that lasted until 1962. De Rossa was thus kept inside – only this time at the camp run by the Irish Army at the Curragh, Co. Kildare, where he remained until February 1959. But now, he was one of three party leaders in the ‘Rainbow Coalition’ and a member of the Irish Cabinet’s Northern Ireland Committee. John Bruton, the Fine Gael Taioseach – who was more instinctively hostile to the most atavistic forms of nationalism than almost any other holder of that post – felt closer to de Rossa on northern questions than any other member of his Government. Indeed, a poll of UUP delegates conducted at the party’s annual conference by Liam Clarke of The Sunday Times showed that de Rossa was the Irish politician most trusted by Ulster Unionists – and, as such, way ahead of John Bruton, Dick Spring and John Hume. No doubt this was because of his anti-Provisional credentials. 16

When Trimble learned that de Rossa was visiting Belfast, he immediately invited him to visit UUP headquarters: had any other Irish Cabinet minister been visiting he would not have moved as he did. Above all, this particular encounter had the virtue of sending out the signal that Unionists would talk to those who had genuinely embraced constitutionalism – whilst simultaneously annoying the Provisionals. 17 Its significance was largely symbolic and little of substance was discussed: for his part, de Rossa recalls that ‘I wanted to knock for six the notion that David Trimble was an obstacle to peace. Ruth Dudley Edwards, who knew him socially had said as much and she was influential in this regard. I got some hassle over it, though Democratic Left loved it.’ De Rossa remembers that throughout the 30-minute meeting, Trimble displayed a nervous exuberance. But he was left with the distinct impression that the UUP leader was willing to talk to all political leaders in the Republic, including the Taoiseach. 18 Whether or not the meeting seriously annoyed the Provisionals, it certainly set alarm bells ringing at the Department of Foreign Affairs in Dublin. Fergus Finlay recalls that it was interpreted as an attempt to create a ‘back-channel’ to the Taoiseach at the expense of the Foreign Minister and Tanaiste, Dick Spring: Unionists saw Spring and his department as far more hostile to their interests than John Bruton. 19 Shortly thereafter, Trimble also stated that ‘some unionists at the moment would have difficulty envisaging Gerry Adams coming to Glengall Street, but that’s because they see Adams as he is today. But if we have a situation where people have proved a commitment to exclusively peaceful methods and have shown that they abide by the democratic process, that will put them in the same position as Proinsias de Rossa is today.’ 20

The unhappinness of elements of the Irish Government over the meeting with de Rossa was one thing; a discontented UUP parliamentary caucus was quite another. It was not so much the substance of such exercises in free-thinking which vexed them: after all, as Trimble never tired of pointing out, Martin Smyth had been the first MP to declare that Unionists might have to talk to Sinn Fein, subject to a surrender of weapons. 21 What really annoyed them was the manner in which the meeting took place. Trimble had met with de Rossa before he had met with his colleagues. Indeed, he did not meet the Westminster MPs for weeks afterwards – either collectively or one-on-one. Partly, it was his own personality. It was not his style to dabble in the little touches in man-management at which Molyneaux excelled, such as solicitous inquiries after wives and children. Indeed, Trimble says that he knew he had serious problems with his fellow MPs, but that it did not occur to him to meet with them until Parliament resumed in the following month. Ken Maginnis – who became one of Trimble’s strongest supporters – still thinks it was a cardinal error of judgment which has damaged him to this day. 22 Trimble, though, believes that levels of resentment were such that he doubts it would have made very much difference. 23 Certainly, in the case of William Ross, the gulf between the two men was probably so enormous as to be unbridgeable. Ross, a magnificently ‘thran’ sheep farmer from the Roe Valley near Dungiven, finished his elementary education at the age of fourteen and is very much out of the ‘School of Life’ Brigade; he would soon emerge as Trimble’s most forthright critic in the Westminster team. Ross regarded Trimble as a clever butterfly who moved from one group to the next – from Vanguard to the UUP to the Union Group to the Ulster Clubs and finally on to the Ulster Society. Although no fool, Ross’s conservatism was of the heart, not of the mind. This proved to be the essence of his differences with Trimble. He felt that Trimble had no gut understanding of the malignancy of republicans because he came from the most English part of Co. Down, where there was a tiny and largely quiescent nationalist population. By contrast, Ross’s native Dungiven, which was one-third Protestant when he grew up, was now almost completely Catholic and the local IRA units were much in evidence. Talk of a balanced accommodation, Ross believed, was all very well – unless you were on the receiving end of ethnic cleansing. 24

The member of the parliamentary party with whom Trimble then felt more comfortable was his closest rival for the leadership – John Taylor. The two men had an older brother – younger brother relationship since Vanguard days: Taylor, first elected to Stormont in 1965, was then the longest-serving elected representative in Northern Ireland. 25 But for all their compatibility, Taylor was also the only Unionist who could conceivably threaten his leadership. A role had, therefore, to be found for him. But of what kind? Trimble rang Taylor from his Lurgan office and asked to come to the latter’s home near Armagh. He knew that if Taylor had won, the older man would have appointed him as chief whip. But to have done the same for Taylor would have been beneath Taylor’s dignity. On the drive down, a solution occurred to him. He remembered that the parliamentary party was not governed by UUC rules. Harold McCusker had been elevated to the deputy leadership of the Unionist caucus in the 1982–6 Prior Assembly. Armed with this precedent, Trimble made his offer to Taylor. The Strangford MP duly accepted, though Trimble acknowledges that this action, too, inflamed some in the parliamentary party. 26 But it was worth it: they could not decide Trimble’s fate, whereas Taylor, with his 333 third-round votes, easily could. Indeed, as Reg Empey recalls, ‘Trimble needed Taylor more than Taylor needed Trimble’. 27