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

But Mayhew’s difficulties were more personal still. His height (six-foot-five), bearing, voice and family background all counted against him in the eyes of hardline Unionists. Daphne Trimble recalls that ‘David was famously public in criticising Mayhew’s “grand” accent – which really is something the poor man couldn’t help. Maybe it was inexperience in dealing with secretaries of state – not that he liked Mowlam, either.’ 38 Andrew Hunter ascribes the deteriorating relationship in part to the petit bourgeois academic lawyer’s sense of social and professional inferiority to an eminent silk and scion of the southern Ascendancy (though Trimble says that what he really objected to was Mayhew’s exaggerated patrician manner). 39 Mayhew’s forebears had come to Co. Cork in the 13th century but as he himself observes, ‘families like mine had very few connections with Protestants in the north. Living in the south, Anglo-Irish families tended to think of northern Protestants as denizens of the wild woods; and one of the things I was so grateful for as Secretary of State was coming to know them.’ 40 Andrew Hunter, though, feels that Mayhew had little sympathy for Unionists. 41 Sir John Wheeler, who served as Security Minister from 1993–97, also says that ‘Mayhew never understood Unionists or the Loyal Orders. Even though he was the first Secretary of State to visit an Orange Lodge [at Comber, Co. Down, in 1995], I don’t think that he had that instinctive understanding of how they feared their position within the United Kingdom was being eroded. It took me a little while to understand it but when I did, it enabled me to deal with them.’ 42 There was, notes Michael Ancram, a further reason for the mutual antipathy: ‘David Trimble was very good at being very, very rude – to both of us. Paddy would sit there afterwards and ask me why did I take it whenever David accused us of being liars or whatever. It was mutual hatred. David’s nostrils would flare, his eyes would go very wide and his cheeks very red. Partly, it was histrionics, but partly it was genuine. David was a new type of Unionist who was far more mistrustful of the Conservatives.’ 43 Trimble preferred Ancram on a personal basis: ‘He was good company and one could even trade insults with him in jocular fashion,’ says Trimble. Moreover, he felt that Ancram (the heir to the Marquess of Lothian) had fewer airs and graces than his boss. That said, Trimble never took Ancram’s ‘Unionism’ terribly seriously either and he was intensely suspicious of his key officials in the Political Development Directorate of the NIO – principally Quentin Thomas and Jonathan Stephens. 44

One minister who kept a close eye on Thomas’s activities was Viscount Cranborne, leader of the House of Lords. To Cranborne, Thomas embodied ‘the habits of decades of imperial decline. This habit brought about the cast of mind of British officialdom of assuming that the most expedient way of tackling any difficulty is finding the most elegant path of retreat – and most emphatically so in Northern Ireland. Considerations of improving or advancing the interests of your own loyal people are now totally alien to the British official mind, and I suspect have been since the 1920s. As a result, I think they saw David Trimble as yet another little colonial problem to be managed.’ 45 Probably no senior Tory has enjoyed so dark a reputation in nationalist Ireland since F.E. Smith, who was loathed for his part in the Home Rule crisis of 1912. 46 Cranborne’s Unionist credentials derived partly from the record of his forebears, but also from his own career: when he retired from the Commons, aged 40, in 1987 he cited his disgust with the Anglo-Irish Agreement as one of the reasons. And now, it was alleged, he was placing obstacles in the way of the ‘peace process’. He was credited with so much influence that one senior Irish official describes him as having been ‘effectively Prime Minister in respect of the affairs of Northern Ireland’. 47

Yet was Cranborne’s reputation justified? And what was his relationship to Trimble? Certainly, Major came to depend on him not merely to manage the peers but also to run his re-election bid after he resigned the Conservative leadership in June 1995. More significantly, Cranborne had asked for, and was rewarded with membership of the Cabinet’s Northern Ireland Committee. This body met monthly (or more often, when necessary) in the Cabinet Room. It also included Major, Mayhew, Kenneth Clarke, Michael Heseltine, Ancram, Wheeler, Alistair Goodlad (the Chief Whip). Following Redwood’s leadership challenge that June, the balance on that body had marginally tilted away from the Major – Mayhew line because of the resignation of Douglas Hurd. Hurd was a key figure in formulating the Anglo-Irish Agreement and his replacement, Malcolm Rifkind, did not share his enthusiasm for the subject. Mayhew would start the meetings, with Ancram presenting the political picture and Wheeler the intelligence briefing. Cranborne scarcely dominated these gatherings: he would sit at the end of the table in the Cabinet Room so that he could see everybody and would not look pushy. In any case, he notes, these were not occasions for great passionate arguments – confrontation was distinctly ‘non-U’ – and much was left unsaid. 48 ‘Robert’s importance was that he knew and was trusted by all Unionists,’ says Mayhew. ‘After we had a row with the Unionists over the Scott Report [in February 1996, the Ulster Unionists voted against the Government over the inquiry into the arms for Iraq scandal] things were very bad between us. I’m not good at the Realpolitik of reconciliation. But Robert is different. He was very understanding of Trimble.’ 49 Yet curiously, Trimble and Cranborne were not personally close. Indeed, Cranborne observes that Trimble would rarely come to see him in this period. Rather, it was Cranborne who sought out Trimble. Cranborne feels that Trimble always saw him out of politeness and says that he has never met a politician who plays his cards closer to his chest than Trimble (the UUP leader retorts, ‘What cards do I have?’). Trimble trusted Cranborne as a genuine Unionist, though he feared at times that Cranborne might not always be in the loop or else might be used as a channel for spin. 50 It said much about the British state’s successful alienation of Unionist affections that even this relationship was characterised at times by a degree of wariness.

TRIMBLE’S first major speech after assuming the Unionist leadership was to address a reception on the 90th anniversary of the foundation of the UUC. Gordon Lucy was summoned to help and assumed that it would be an historical tour d’horizon concerning Unionism past, present and future. He was not merely to be disappointed, but shocked when Trimble informed him that he was thinking of ‘bringing in the Provisionals from the cold’; shortly thereafter, John Hunter was told much the same. Hunter listened and says that he took this to be simply a throw-away remark. Trimble says that he did not quite say this: he was just trying to urge his party ‘not to display the usual stock hostility to [republicans] and all their works’. Whatever the actual content or significance of the remark, Trimble’s line of thinking ultimately led to a series of breaches between both men and the UUP leader. 1 Trimble’s chosen first step for accomplishing the task of weaning the republicans off violence was an elected forum. On the night of the address, at the Balmoral conference centre in south Belfast, Trimble reiterated his public position on decommissioning. Then, he added: ‘It could be that both these matters could be resolved in the one way. Sinn Fein could obtain a democratic mandate and show a commitment to the democratic process if there were elections, say, to a new Assembly. By standing, taking their seats and contributing to the debate they could show whether they are committed to the democratic process and the principle of consent. In such elections it would be very interesting to see what support Sinn Fein actually has. If they took their seats we would recognise their position and could debate with them across the floor and thus talk to them at a time when they have not fulfilled all the requirements of the Declaration and thus be unable to move into formal inter-party talks. An Assembly could bridge that gap until they do meet the requirements of the [Downing Street] Declaration.’ 2 The address was classic Trimble and it pointed up the complexity of Trimble’s actions. For although he disclaimed any intention to recreate Stormont, Trimble saw merit in facilitating dialogue with Sinn Fein in an inherently partitionist body. If they did so, all well and good; but, if not, then their refusal to accept Northern Ireland as the relevant political unit (and thus the consent principle) would be apparent to all. It would stop the obsessive concentration on decommissioning. But Trimble also thought that such a forum could provide a training ground for the younger Unionist cadres whose aspirations were stymied by the current political arrangements. Local government was so powerless as to offer little to any rising stars; and members of the ageing parliamentary party at Westminster showed scant inclination to retire. 3