WHERE MR MAJOR IS WELL AHEAD
Bruce Arnold on an electorate
which much prefers the Prime Minister to Labour
Dublin THE AINTREE bomb scare shamed Ire- land. It also enraged everyone. But it did that and more to the Labour party, which found itself out in the open, faced with real events rather than manifesto argu- ments. Its leadership momentarily faltered. Jack Straw changed Mo Mowlam's tune, Placing an unrealistic 'beyond the pale' limitation on Slim Fein; Robin Cook uttered platitudes; and Tony Blair lost his temper with Michael Howard for correctly questioning where Labour stood on terror- ism and what its precise policies were on Northern Ireland. Aintree stopped the Parties hiding behind consensus. John Major confronted the realities as a Sportsman might, stubbornly. On Northern Ireland he has learnt to grapple with ter- rorism without remission, and it has given film better first-hand experience than any- one. Indeed it has helped to make him the best British prime minister for Ireland in the last 30 years. He is followed in this by Edward Heath. Third comes Margaret Thatcher who, though she signed the Anglo-,j5h Agreement, made little Progress beyond it. The Labour prime ministers Harold Wilson and James Callaghan were not in the same race. Major's achievements include the expos- ing of several Irish political myths. He has co. nfronted successive Irish leaders, union- ist, nationalist and from the Republic, in exactly the same spirit of urbane and calm 111(11MY, asking them to deliver their cre- dentials, evidence of viability for their pro- PTals, and has then effectively said, 'Prove tt: The outcome has endorsed his scepti- cism rather than their aspirations. And if this means that the present violence will continue, then so be it. For his first two years in office he had to deal with two of the most devious and clan- tekrotis Irish leaders in recent years, .T.Zatles Haughey and Albert Reynolds. only political issue at the time was ether or not the Republic of Ireland COld repeal Articles 2 and 3 of its consti- ttml. When it was clear that neither ,1°Iild address this problem, Major turned his own domestic difficulties and ttMored Irish constitutional change. This situation altered fundamentally after Albert Reynolds went into govern- ment with Dick Spring following the Irish general election of November 1992. Both men came under the spell of John Hume, who in turn was in close collaboration with Gerry Adams. From the time of the joint statement made by the leaders of the SDLP and Provisional Sinn Fein in April 1993, followed by a second statement in September, Major was faced with the transformation of the Northern Ireland problem into an Irish Question involving a pan-nationalist front stretching from the Provisional IRA across all the parties in the Republic.
Major met this head-on in his character- istically forthright way. If the deal is good, he said, show me how. And in the joint declaration, made by himself and Albert Reynolds at Downing Street in mid- December 1993, he set out a position more open to change than that of any of his predecessors. There were conditions: his government was not taking sides; the violence had to stop; change required the consent of the majority in Northern Ire- land; the principles of democracy were paramount.
He accepted Dublin's role. To all appear- ances he could deal with Albert Reynolds, and his new Secretary of State, Patrick May- hew, could deal with Dick Spring. But the Downing Street declaration was important in that it tied Dublin to the same principles. Dublin politicians and the civil servants working within the Department of Foreign Affairs are fond of conceiving of the British as devious and unreliable, even treacherous. John Major had to make similar judgments about the Irish, and was proved not alto- gether wrong.
'I realise you have a head of gold, Thomas. How much cID you want for it?' It took the pan-nationalist front eight months to deliver a so-called `peace'. To do this the Dublin government dismantled its airwave restraints on Gerry Adams and Slim Fein, beginning the process by which a dangerous media monster was created. Adams became a world figure, ostensibly promoting peace but in fact refusing to meet the principles which had been declared in Downing Street.
From the outset, the 'peace' was partial, compromised by punishment beatings and IRA rejection of decommissioning. Major pointed this out. He was demonised by Dublin, and the growing impatience of Albert Reynolds and Dick Spring indicated that the Irish government, in classic style, was prepared to deviate in favour of the Hume-Adams initiative, ignoring the fact that the Republic of Ireland's stated policy on the peace process had insisted on decommissioning. When this became a bone of contention, as the conditions sur- rounding it were altered and modified, spe- cial pleading was introduced about the deeply emotional Irish concept of keeping 'a pike in the thatch' against future rever- sals. John Major listened politely to the Irish point of view, but stuck resolutely to the principles agreed in Downing Street in December 1993.
This supposed 'intransigence' was said to have contributed substantially to the Canary Wharf bomb of February 1995. By then John Bruton was in charge of a very different administration in Dublin, and was showing that he could work with John Major. The new opposition leader, Bertie Ahern, was being more hawkish about the British, but essentially watching his tongue as he forged a new leadership position. His predecessor, Albert Reynolds, however, was increasingly enunciating the Sinn Fein line, to everyone's embarrassment. Reynolds has become a loose cannon worldwide, exposing the pan-nationalist consensus as unstable and poorly based. The US State Department has recognised this, and it has undermined President Clin- ton's involvement — a great pity, since Clinton's performance on Ireland has been better than that of any previous American policy.
With all in abeyance, John Major shines out among an electorate he does not have — the plain people of the Republic of Ire- land. They prefer what he has done to the much less stable Labour party line, which remains theoretical, uncertain and exploratory. For the majority in the Repub- lic, Major has proved himself an ally. His caution and reserve, firm against the nationalist tide of misplaced optimism about Gerry Adams, his party and the Pro- visional IRA, have made an outstanding contribution in this intractable area. We would like him back to continue the good work.
The author is political commentator with the Irish Independent.
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