Ireland (1)

The end of the road?

Cecil King

The government has changed and we now have the colourless Merlyn Rees in place of the lack-lustre Pym in charge of Northern Ireland. The policy is to be the same though slightly more relaxed in some areas. The bombings and killings continue on an increasing scale and no end is in sight.

But to go back a bit. It is generally believed that Mr Heath had decided on an election on February 7, but in reply to the earnest pleading of Mr Whitelaw and Mr Pym decided to popstpone the date, perhaps by some months.

The argument against the election was that it would show up the weakness of the Faulkner group and in effect torpedo the Sunningdale agreement. Unfortunately developments in the miners' strike made an election unavoidable and it was held in February anyway. From this there followed two results — the Conservatives lost an election they would have won on February 7, and the Paisleyite forces swept the board in the six counties.

Mr Heath was left in a minority and tried hard to secure the fourteen Liberal votes. It was difficult to see how these could have been secured without a firm commitment to proportional representation, but this was not offered — only a Speaker's Conference.

Meanwhile Mr Heath had been offered the eleven Unionist votes if he would undertake to hold fresh Assembly elections later in the year. It is believed that such an election would wipe out the Alliance Party and on balance weaken the Faulkner group. To this offer (which, with the Liberals' fourteen votes, would have given Mr Heath a clear majority over all parties) Mr Heath replied that he was prepared to give the Tory whip to seven out of the eleven. This clumsy attempt to split the Unionist forces failed, as it desprved to do, particularly as the four rejected votes included Paisley and Craig, the two most influential members of the group. In such a tight situation why antagonise people who can be helpful? Whether their offer was to be accepted or rejected it could at least have been done without insult.

However, it was Labour that formed the new Government and it was immediately decided to go ahead with power-sharing, Sunningdale, and 'stamping out terrorism.' I take this decision not to be based on any confidence in the Heath policy. But if Labour supports Conservative policy over Northern Ireland, then Labour cannot be attacked by the Tories for any disasters that may ensue. MPs in general are fed up with Ireland and the Irish and wish they would go away and get lost. This is not a very helpful attitude but explains why the death and destruction all over the Province produce so little reaction in Westminster. I was interested to find when I was in Dublin recently that the southern Irish have had all they can take of news of Northern Ireland. News from Belfast, however dramatic, does not sell papers in Dublin.

The attitude of the Dublin government is hard to follow. They seem flattered by the closer relations with Whitehall, and seriously to think that the Council of Ireland will be a useful step towards a United Ireland. But this is not so. Bringing the Six Counties and the Twenty-six together can only be achieved with the whole-hearted co-operation of the Protestant majority in the North. It is said that Mr Whitelaw was anxious to have Dr Paisley at Sunningdale but this was vetoed by Mr Heath — hence Mr Whitelaw's

surprisingly timid resignation from his post in Northern Ireland.

Personally I think an accommodation between Stormont and Dublin is perfectly possible — but only on a one-to-one basis. If the British Government intervenes, success is improbable.

During the last five years, important.

changes have been brought about in the political complexion of the Province. The old division between Protestants, loyal to the British connection, and Catholics looking to the South has changed. So has the political dominance of the area. The landed gentry and industrialists who controlled the Orange Order and the politics of the Six Counties have lost, and power lies with the Protestant working class. This has a particular significance as it means that there is now no class difference between the politically dominant Protestants and the Catholics. And this also explains the importance of Dr Paisley who would never have found his way to the front while the Province was dominated by people like Lord Brookborough, Lord O'Neill of the Maine, and Lord Moyola. Dr Paisley now has the leadership of the Protestant masses, and in his own constituency has strong support from the local Catholics.

All attempts to build a policy for Northern Ireland on the personalities of Brian Faulkner and Gerry Fitt are bound to fail. Mr Faulkner has not got the support of the majority of Unionists, and Mr Fitt and the SDLP have incurred the bitter hostility of the IRA.

The present policy of this Government — as of the last — is to pretend that Dr Paisley at one end of the spectrum and the IRA at the other do not exist. We have Mr Merlyn Rees saying that the IRA,would not be allowed to bomb its way to the, conference table. I am reminded of my youth — in the negotiatipns leading'up to the Treaty, of 1922 — when a

British statesman, (was it Churchill?) said he would not "shake hands with murder." 'Murder' in that context meant Michael Collins, with whom good relations were established somewhat later.

But to return to the change of sentiment in Northern Ireland. As I said earlier the Protestant .community used to feel a warm loyalty to Great Britain. The bungling by successive British governments over the last five years has dissipated this feeling, and hostility to great Britain is now as much in evidence among the Protestants as it still is among the Catholics.

When Dr Paisley was asked what he thought of Mr Merlyn Rees's recent announcement on Irish policy in the House of Com

mons, . he answered, "Dynamite." This is

because he is afraid that a pursuance of present policies in Ireland by the British Government will lead to attacks op the)3ritish Army by the Protestant extremists. These men are said to be better armed, better trained, and far more numerous than the IRA. Moreover there have recently been meetings between one of the militant Protestant groups and the IA to concert a .policy for the expulsion of the British Army from Ireland.

Other policies might have been possible two or three years, ago, but in five years of

violence the British Government has made only two moves. It has abolished the old Stormont and estaplished the new Assembly. For the rest, successive spokesmen have alternated promises to stamp out terrorism with the admission that a military solution of the problems of Northern Ireland is not possible. And the result. of all this procrastination and indecision is the death of 1,000 people, most of them innocent victims, or soldiers sent to Northern Ireland to enforce a non-existent policy. Imagine the uproar if all this had occurred in Fluyton.or,Bexley and not in Belfast, where the citizens are as entitled to good government as they are anywhere else.

It seems to me that the British Government in Northern Ireland has reached the end of the

road. It can play no useful part except to cushion financially the transition from itS present status to that of independence. To mind independence gives everybodY, something — the British Government wetil; be able to withdraw its troops from Irelana, the Protestants would get back their Stormont and the IRA would get British soldiers off the sacred soil of Ireland — and secure Ireland's independence. This independence would regrettably be in two parts but I think closer relations between the two parts could speedily be attained if agreement were to be negotiated between Irishmen without meddling from Whitehall. The stock Government argument against such a denouement is that it would lead to a wholesale massacre of Catholics followed bY civil, war. Irish politics are often unpredictable . but neither the Loyalists nor the IRA think this would happen. I am inclined to believe the IRA as they would be killed first if there were to be a massacre.

It is interesting that this point of view %OS put forward — very cautiously — in a recent article in the Observer by Lord O'Neill of the Maine. When a policy appeals both to Dr Paisley and to Terence O'Neill it should surelY not be dismissed out of hand.

Cecil King, formerly chairman of the Inter. national Publishing Corporation, has all nounced that he is shortly moving Per, manently to Ireland from his present home a, Hampton Court.