Ulster
Canny might do it
litawle Knox Londonderry, October 25 Wee Brian, as his not so friendly friends call him, still leads Northern Ireland's Unionist Party — for the moment. His enemies woulo, say he has always led it for the moment, an he has a lot of enemies, some of them patently within William Whitelaw's office. However. Brian Faulkner enjoys living dangerously; he would hardly be where he is if he didn't. After the Unionists' Standing Committee meetingf last week, where he gained a disputed vote confidence, Faulkner emerged "blazing with suspect optimism," according to the Tinies man in Belfast. Neat; but for myself I would, suspect, and no one can do more, that there was at least a foundation for that optimism' The Unionist leader has been made to aPPeacr • on television so often making sheep noise' that some people have forgotten his lupine potential. And now he has got those well" displayed teeth of his into something. Harry West and John Laird and Faulkneeisi other hard foes in the Unionist Party, who wil have nothing to do with sharing places in e.0 executive with the Social and Democratic Labour Party (republicans and rebels to II man, say those same hard foes) intend to ca a full meeting of the Unionist Council of som‘s! 900 representatives — as opposed to the 20u, odd on the standing committee. There they are sure that the feeling against a Council ot
Ireland, with the proposed participation of the dread city of Dublin, against tinkering with the Royal Ulster Constabulary and against letting internees out of the Maze prison (except letting the Protestant ones out, of course) Will turn the tide against Brian Faulkner, who has of course agreed to none of these things. It may. It certainly would have done so only a couple of months ago. Since then, to everyone's amazement — Willie Whitelaw could hardly contain his — .Brian Faulkner's section of the Unionist Party has sat down, more than once, with members of the SDLP and the midstream Alliance Party to discuss the possibility of sharing power in government; and the delegates have emerged silent, With no rushing off to Belfast's TV studios to cast curses at one another over the ether. That is something rather tremendous for Northern Ireland. So while Harry West and John Laird and Co are going round the countryside, with the full approval of the Orange Order, rallying all good men to stand firm for the Queen and Britain against the insidious inroads of Rome, Brian Faulkner and his pals are saying yes, but who butters the bread? We're as British as Mrs Paisley herself, but hadn't we better look and see what the British want? London is offering us a share — and we say it will have to be a major share — of the power; but if you go along with the Paisleys you'll have no power at all. That is What Faulkner has got his teeth into.
The change of mood among much of the Protestant community has been noted also by Intelligent Catholics. They no longer fear a Protestant backlash as, two years ago, say, they genuinely did. "They're canny Scots at heart," said one Catholic the other day. They'll sing rebellion a while more yet, but In the end they'll do what their pocket tells them to do." When I was a small boy I read somewhere that the Irish had invented the bagpipes and sold them to the Scots as a, joke; and the Scots hadn't seen the joke yet. At the time I thought it very funny (it could have been out of a Christmas cracker) but now I'm inclined to think it may have been straight fact. At any rate the Scots have brought their native canniness to Ulster, and that includes the three Ulster counties that are in the Irish Republic, and it has rubbed off on the local Community without that community noticing. Ulster people reckon they are superior to southern Irishmen4 and they put it down to their own sterling qualities or to having Provided the kings of all Ireland for so many centuries. Really, if there's anything in it, it's because they've been rubbing shoulders, bumping shoulders maybe, with the Scots for S o long, For Brian Faulkner isn't the only one Who knows how to be canny. A much quieter tune nowadays is coming from Gerry Fitt and the SDLP as the possibility — certainty if there really is to be an executive — grows of a.few departments coming under the control 01 the party. A year ago it seemed that the IRA planted the bombs and the SDLP sounded the echo of the explosion. No longer; the S.PLP is acting respectable, and that makes tile IRA madder than ever.
tam not saying that either Brian Faulkner's unionists or the SDLP have softened their attitudes because they see the chance of getting a few jobs for the boys. That would be unfair. What both parties, and with them of course the Alliance which was all for power!haring anyway, do see is that Northern Ireland will remain under British dominion for the foreseeable future, and that the only way getting rid of the intrusive British presence kati.fond, the Army, which nobody wants and hich certainly doesn't want to be in 'Northern Ireland) is to make it evident that nprthern Irishmen are capable of running the _Place — northern Irishmen, mind you, not southern With that thought Brian Faulkner's Unionists and the SDLP are warily sniffing round each other's tails. It may not sound a very promising basis for a start, but even to
see a start is something of a miracle. I'm not saying that either Brian Faulkner or Gerry Fitt has given up his basic ideals, just that they've shelved them in order to look for a practical proposition; because they damn well know, both of them, that a practical proposition is what the electorate really voted for. People are getting more money, and they want to live to enjoy it in houses that don't get blown up. In Londonderry, for instance, long the blackest spot on Britain's economic map, unemployment has dropped 25 per cent in the last twelve months; and Dupont, not known as the area's worst employer, is looking to replace forty men who have left for better jobs.
Do not get the idea that peace has crept up on Ireland, all unawares. There are too many leopards around for that — very spotty ones. Though it's true that the great majority in Northern Ireland want an end to the dreary misery of violence, and that a smaller majority would privately admit that the Constitution Act, if imperfect, offers the best chance of peaceful government in the immediate future, no one can be publicly seen to surrender. Thus if Brian Faulkner and Gerry Fitt do in the end find a way of sharing power, they will surely continue to shout insults at one another; their supporters will expect them to. That would be normal peaceful practice. But no part of the power, such as it is, will be shared by the IRA. which has no incentive at all to refrain from bombing or shooting where it will. No power is likely to go to the Protestant groups supporting the UDA and the UVF whose members give no sign of restraining their grisly assassination squads.
Security thus remains, literally, the vital issue. Everyone of course is in favour of law and order, even the gunmen — they deal out their own. William Craig and his Vanguard Unionists see security simply as wiping out the IRA. One article in a Protestant paper advocated the British Army using the same tactics as it did in Malaya in the 'fifties. I was in Malaya in the 'fifties, and the British Army there certainly didn't handle terrorism with kid gloves. as Craig says it'does in Belfast. But I don't think the herding of Northern Ireland's Catholic community into barbed wire enclosures and searching each one of them carefully every morning as he or she emerged for work would really restore peace in the land. The SDLP maintains that the proposed Council of Ireland must take part in the restoration of a permanent peace in the North. So, it would appear from William Whitelaw's latest exposition on law and order, does the British government. If it does, it is right, though it doesn't have to go hand in hand with the SDLP on everything, for there can be no peace in Northern Ireland that Dublin doesn't approve of. Any soldier who has had to do duty on the border — either side — can tell you that. William Whitelaw, who plays a
fair hand of canniness himself, has told the Unionists that there will be no change in the RUC. He really had to do that, because the RUC is the Unionists' sacred orange. But he would not be going back on his word if Lon don and Dublin entered into some joint policing agreements — without which there will never be normal social life in some areas of Northern Ireland where they haven't seen a policeman for years, and would certainly throw a bottle at the next one they see were he wearing an RUC uniform.
So that's the progress report. By the grace of someone's God a start has been made, and a lot of breaths are being held. Unfortunately you can't talk without expelling breath, and it's hard to say what will happen when the politicians get down seriously to the on subject that really matters — security. Don't expect miracles, but note that the Church of
Rome takes a long, long time to verify a miracle — even a North of Ireland Protestant might approve of that.
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