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

The other significant aspect of the Forum elections of 1996 was the shredding of the Unionist vote, which fell 5.2% on the 1993 council elections result. Consequently, the UUP won under 50% of the vote of the majority community; the DUP took 18.8% of the total; McCartney’s UKUP took 3.6% for three seats; whilst the PUP and UDP took 3.5% and 2.2% respectively. Neither of the latter two would have won seats in the main constituency system, but they squeezed in under the Province-wide top-up system which guaranteed two extra places to the ten largest parties. 49 Moreover, the UUP’s failure to win half the vote meant that when the rules for the talks were finally settled, the UUP was dependent upon at least one other unionist grouping to push through its policies (under the rule of ‘sufficient consensus’, any important proposal had to win the support of the representatives of over half of each communal bloc). This proved crucial especially after September 1997, when the DUP and UKUP walked out. For it left the UUP dependent upon the smaller loyalist paramilitary parties, who had their own objectives on such issues as prisoner releases that were not necessarily congenial to constitutional unionists. This played a part in forcing Trimble to acquiesce in those demands on Good Friday 1998. Trimble believes that Ancram was very pleased with these results, because they increased the divisions within Unionism. It had long been the policy of the British state, Trimble contends, to wear down the Unionist family, so as to make them more pliant to the broader needs of central government. Ancram disagrees with this analysis: it would have been far easier, he says, if Trimble had won a majority, thus diminishing his worries about Paisley and McCartney (who were then still in the talks). 50 But whoever is right, what is beyond dispute is that the Forum election was the first of a series of poor UUP electoral results under Trimble’s leadership – though the decline long predated his ascent to the top job.

THE days following the Forum elections presented Trimble with the severest test yet of his leadership. For it was in the fortnight leading up to 10 June 1996 – the date set by the two Governments for the commencement of all-party negotiations – that the pattern of the talks was settled. Ever since the South Quay bomb, despite sometimes fierce disagreements between the two sets of negotiators, intergovernmental policy had been drifting in a pro-nationalist direction. This included the terms of entry into negotiations; when and how decommissioning would be dealt with; and, most dramatically, the issue of who would chair the talks and his remit. Unionists understood the reasons for this slippage only too well. Under ceaseless prodding from the Irish, the British were always tempted by the idea that they could win the prize of a second ceasefire. The nature of the game, as ever, was to give republicans enough whilst not losing the Unionists. But how would Trimble respond? If presented with a fait accompli by the two Governments, would he bring the current process to its knees – by withholding the consent of the largest Unionist party? Or would he break with his brethren in the DUP and UKUP, who adamantly opposed any resiling from earlier commitments, to keep the current talks process alive? No one knew for sure on what terms the UUP leader would settle. And as Viscount Cranborne observes, no one he has ever dealt with in public life plays his cards closer to his chest. 1

The UUP’s public position, as outlined by Trimble in the Irish Times on 29 May 1996, was simple enough. He referred back to the Major – Bruton communiqué of 28 February 1996, in which they stated that the opening session of talks would deal with first a ‘total and absolute commitment’ to the Mitchell principles of non-violence. In accepting this report, Trimble noted, the UUP had acknowledged the validity of the Mitchell compromise – that there had to be a decommissioning in parallel to negotiations. The commitments would have to be given immediately and honoured shortly thereafter – and not ‘parked’ as a fourth Strand which ran independently of the rest of the talks and whose success or otherwise could not affect the rest of the process. Secondly, there was the question of the agenda. Unionists were especially upset that the rules on the emerging Strand III were too intergovernmental in character and excluded them from any serious role in renegotiating the AIA. The whole thing, he believed, smacked of a classic Anglo-Irish imposition from above, instigated at the behest of those he called ‘the little Hitlers’ in the DFA and their ‘collaborators’ at Stormont. Strong words – but what did he really mean by them?

As ever, Trimble’s supporters in the Conservative party were fired up by his language. They worried that the Government would dilute the conditions on decommissioning in order to secure a second IRA ceasefire (such as ‘parking’ the issue). On 19 May 1996, Andrew Hunter faxed the following concerned message to Trimble regarding his intentions: ‘Robert Cranborne and I both feel there are too many grey areas, but see little point in demanding more than you are reported to find acceptable’. Trimble replied on the same day: ‘I have not agreed anything with Major. There are too many grey areas. I find difficulty in seeing any differences between Major and Spring in terms of his procedures: tho’ John claims they are different. I do not want to sound too hardline during the election. But I will insist on clarity before 10 June.’ It may well have been that Trimble had not agreed anything in a formal sense, though the Prime Minister had picked up on the ‘vibes’ which the UUP leader was exuding. Major recalls thinking – correctly – that Trimble’s hostility to Mitchell was ‘more sound and fury than genuine opposition’. 2 So what was the purpose of Trimble’s denial of such an agreement? He frequently preferred that unionist sympathisers on the mainland make the running for him – ‘doing my dirty work’ was the expression he often employed – rather than for himself to make a fuss. Thus, he appears perfectly capable of encouraging English Unionists to maintain the pressure ad interim , whilst planning an accommodation all along. ‘Calling off the dogs’ too soon would have resulted in a worse deal.

The final words of Trimble’s response to Andrew Hunter were significant. ‘I am also going cool on [Senator George] Mitchell since an unsatisfactory response yesterday from Anthony Lake [Clinton’s then National Security Adviser] to my request for assurances that Mitchell was still committed to his report.’ Nationalist Ireland was keen on a key role for Mitchell in the talks, in particular as chairman of Strands II and III, regarding this as a symbol of the further internationalisation of the conflict (and thus the dilution of British sovereignty). Trimble was concerned for several reasons. He liked Mitchell personally and could endorse his report – which he believed presented the Provisionals with some difficulties – but he feared that in a presidential election year the former US Senate Majority leader would be susceptible to pressures from Irish-Americans, who would force him to resile from his own report. 3 He wrote to Major on 20 May 1996 to state that he had spoken to Lake who ‘told me that Senator Mitchell was acting in a private capacity, independently of the US administration and Mr Lake said he would be annoyed if the Senator was approached by anyone involved in the US elections. On decommissioning, Mr Lake said he had not spoken recently to the Senator but that he had no reason to believe that the Senator had changed his mind.

‘In view of the somewhat ephemeral and indirect nature of the assurance on the second issue, I would not be able to agree to any involvement by Senator Mitchell as matters stand [author’s emphasis]. Last Monday, however, you mentioned the possibility of arranging a private discussion for me with the Senator. If you are minded to pursue the possibility of the Senator’s involvement in the process, I would now need to have such a discussion before I could agree to such involvement.’ In this letter, Trimble attached his note to UUP candidates in the forthcoming Forum elections. In this message, however, he appeared more inclined to exclude Mitchell: ‘I have made it clear to Major that we want a non-political chair for those stages of the talks [chairing Strands II and III] i.e. not Mitchell. Mitchell did a fairly good job in the Report on decommissioning. It is possible that he could help to persuade the paramilitaries to accept his report and commence actual decommissioning alongside talks. We have not agreed any such role, but we have not closed the door either.’