Its Ulster difficulty, and the arithmetical problem in the House
of Commons, may serve to remind anyone who has forgotten that the continued exclusion of Mr Powell is not something that is going to help the government in the future.
Ulster, indeed, is a problem which is al- ready causing it greater difficulties than any it has faced so far. These difficulties are un- likely to go away. They are likely to become greater as time goes on. If direct rule begins in Ulster, it may easily produce party prob- lems too great even for the present Leader of the House of Commons.
It may be that Westminster politicians, like much of the English public, have no great interest in Irish politics as such and no very real personal commitment to any particular policy for Ulster's future. It may be that some, or even most, might prefer, other things being equal, that Ulster should become part of Eire. But it is clear at the moment that most Ulstermen wish to remain part of the United Kingdom. It is difficult to see why anything should be done to pre- vent them, and there is every danger that hesitation in attacking terrorism or any con- cession while it lasts will be represented as surrender to those whose object is to estab- lish a reunited Ireland by destroying the Northern Ireland government.
At each stage in the process, decisions made without this intention may be repre-
sented as being steps on that road. A time may well come at which the British govern- ment's policy will look in retrosped like a straight road of continuous surrender—from the disbanding of the B specials, through the betrayal of Major Chichester-Clark and the closing of Stormont, to the arrest of Mr Paisley and a decision to make Fermanagh and Tyrone into negotiable counters while terrorism continues. Above all, bitterness and resistance of a kind unprecedented, even in Rhodesia, may be created by attempts to impose conciliatory policies on Ulster against her wishes and inclinations.
It is to be hoped that not all of these stages will be reached, But their importance in English politics is that this is not an ordinary colonial problem which will dis- appear once the 'liberation movement' has been successful. It is, on .the contrary, a continuing abscess which will be made more poisonous by Ulster's determination to re- main part—and a protestant part—of the United Kingdom. Any politician who plays on Ulster's fate and proximity will find in- numerable opportunities to damage both Mr Heath's government and the Conservative party, and anyone who doubts that this is so should reflect on the damage that has been done already to Stormont, to the Unionist party in Ulster and to relations between Ulster and the United Kingdom since the present bout of effective violence began.
It is for these reasons that MT Powell should be invited to join the government, and there are, it seems, three chief obstacles in the way of his doing so—Mr Heath's feelings, his own possible reaction, and Europe. So far as Mr Powell is concerned, there is much to be said for diversifying his present range of achievement by mastering a major governmental problem. On the other hand, his importance might well become greater if the government's difficulties were acuter than they are at present. Which con- sideration should be the more powerful it is not easy to say. Mr Powell's relations with certain crucial parts of the Conservative management, as distinct from the Prime Minister, have always remained close, so there would be no difficulty in picking up the threads that were snapped in 1968. After all the possibilities have been taken into ac- count, it is hard to avoid the feeling that he should continue the good he has done the Conservative party in the past by joining the government if given a suitable opportunity, even though he may lose something in the process.
Of Mr Heath's feelings, if they are still what they were, it must be said that he has become rather isolated in having them. Whoei/er was to blame for his removal of Mr Powell from the Shadow Cabinet in the first place, that particular situation has gone for ever. Mr Powell is now, what he has made himself in the last three years, the critical conscience of the responsible nation; he is likely to look even more responsible in the future. There is, therefore, no public reason why he should any longer be ex- cluded, and it is certain that if Mr Heath asked him to join the government, no one of consequence in the Conservative party could raise any reasonable objection.
There is, doubtless, a danger from Mr Heath's point of view, that Mr Powell in office would either look more influential than he was or try to become more powerful than he should be. These, however, are the ordin- ary dangers normally encountered in this line of business. They should be dismissed both because Mr Heath obviously has to pay something for having freed Mr Powell to begin his spectacular phase as the people's tribune three years ago, and because he is so much stronger personally than in 1968 that he can well afford to pay it.
If Mr Powell were to join the government, there would be ,ambarrassment about a few of the questions on which he has become strongly committed. Some, like his amend- ments to the Immigration Bill, could, at a pinch, be thought of as matters of detail. Others, like Europe, could not, and it would obviously be absurd for Mr Powell to join the government if the government really is committed to going into Europe.
The question, however, has increasingly become whether the government is commit- ted and whether it is likely that it ever will be. It seems increasingly unlikely that it ever could have been, as well as being undesirable that it should be. For practical purpose, it may be taken that it is not. Even if, for tactical or other reasons, the present applica- tion is persisted in, its outcome is extremely uncertain. In the present political situation uncertainty is as objectionable as the appli- cation itself. If Mr Powell's arrival in office were made the occasion for a voluntary renunciation of this most unfashionable line of policy, a great sense of relief would be felt in most parts of the Conservative party as a new, and more united, phase of Con- servative politics began.
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