NI POLITICS: How not to do it
Missed opportunities at Hillsborough
Regime change
On Tuesday of last week, David Trimble announced that although the Prime Minister had, yet again, postponed an audience with the Queen, and Mr Ahern had missed a cabinet meeting in the Republic, he had to say ‘cheerio’ and get himself on a flight to London, in time for a ‘meeting’ the following morning. Naturally this exit didn’t look good. The worst thing about it was that it distracted attention from what actually went on at Hillsborough. It allowed the press, hugely sympathetic as they are to what we used to enjoy calling ‘the pan-nationalist front’, to present these talks as ending in ‘deadlock’. This conjures up images of all the unlovely and intractable parties yet again failing to resolve anything — but in truth, everyone in attendance, bar the Republicans, was agreed. What they were agreed to wasn’t very congenial (and will be yet another nail in David Trimble’s already fairly metallic political coffin) from the point of view of unionism, but there was consensus. Save for Sinn Fein; and it was in allowing this to be presented by their camp followers as being ‘deadlock’, rather than what it actually was, that was Mr Trimble’s most obviously foolish mistake. His errors beyond presentational incompetence, however, now mean that the end is in sight for the UUP leader.
It worth’s reflecting just a moment longer on the prejudice that political unionism confronts in having Northern Irish politics reported by any but the most objective webzines. Take just that ‘stalemate’ that emerged from the supposedly make-or-break talks that went on in Hillsborough last week: all that prevented yet another Agreement being promulgated was that Sinn Fein refused to sign up for the specific terms on offer. You will note, though the BBC, for instance, won’t, that had the DUP (more votes and seats in Stormont than Sinn Fein) been invited, they would have been opposed too. And to whatever is eventually formed out of the fearful desires of the Provo leadership, and the strange desire of David Trimble, well, they’ll be opposed to that too. This, of course, we can laugh off as the foolishness of the Paisleyite position, but the thing is, so will the Government. Note that contrast: when Sinn Fein resile, no progress can be made, when the larger, and non-lethal DUP object, ignore it. This is a reality to be borne in mind; and it’s a mindset that one day we’ll have to decommission. There really are an awful lot of civil servants in the NIO who are going to have to be sacked.
Republican Sinn Fein are right
One of the most damaging things for the leadership of David Trimble — leadership, that is, of the UUP — has been the hollowing out of morale within his party’s electoral and activist base. Habitually this is attributed to ‘growing Unionist disenchantment with the Agreement’, when in fact what it represents is more a sense of, ‘we’re losing, why bother?’ This is distinct from the Agreement having been seen either to fail in practice, or, not quite yet delivered what one had hoped of it. What this sense, and despite it’s political crippling of Mr Trimble, it’s no more than a minority of the majority, amounts to is a feeling that Unionism, whatever the short term and local successes it enjoys (still less, the defeats, obviously), it is itself going down to defeat by nationalism. That, in short, incorporation into a unitary Irish state is upon unionists. This is of course nonsense. It is, however, the failure of Mr Trimble to combat this widespread defeatism that hobbles him more than any other factor.
His hobbling comes, it is crucial to understand, not from what conventional, needless to say, liberal analysis would have it: that he is prevented from acting, or leading, or progressing, by being undermined from within by unionist reaction, or bigotry, or intransigence. This presupposes that Mr Trimble has goals satisfactory to the liberal analyst which he is prevented from obtaining solely because there is only so far he can go without losing the essential motive force required to travel i.e. some basic level of popular support, whatever it is that he is doing.
David Trimble’s utility as a political actor is circumscribed so drastically because he lacks the power to stand up to his ‘partners in peace’, precisely because, being in partnership with them denudes him of electoral appeal, and, as I have attempted to suggest, his base is anyway rotten. David Trimble, as should surely be self-evident, would be more powerful if he had more political support. The mistake that pro-process-inclined commentary consistently makes is that they contend a ‘stronger’ David Trimble would all the more militantly deliver the supposedly shared goals of the processistas: when what in reality he would do is be more effectively equipped to resist. His awful fate in that the fight he wishes to pick — political engagement within the Belfast Agreement structures — is rendered successively more difficult for him by his steadily diminishing stock of political capital; and every day he stays in, he has to make further concessions to do so, and this drains the UUP electoral treasury still further. This catch-22 for the UUP is only going to end when the basis on which it participates in the Agreement ends, and that’s not going to happen under David Trimble.
Yes, that’s right, we’re winning
What David Trimble can’t get across to his electorate, and which would immeasurably strengthen his position, is that far from Unionism being on an inexorable descent into the fetid lowlands of a united [sic] Ireland, Northern Republicanism, having lost its terrorist campaign, has given up. To be fair to David Trimble, he knows this — he knows that when Sinn Fein/IRA members sit opposite him drawing their British salaries and pensions in order that they might sit in a partitionist assembly, well, it’s not Rome Rule yet. Mr Trimble can’t, for example, gee up his supporters by taunting Republicans with these incontestable facts because it negates the strategy he has committed himself to, which is one of allowing Republicans to surrender with dignity (though not with arms). The bedrock reality that the PIRA terror campaign, despite the ineptitude of the state’s response, was defeated is manifest in every act of political engagement by Republicans, but far more so by their own leaders being perfectly well aware of their lack of alternatives. Their bluff, a return to full-scale terror, could be called tomorrow with, let’s be brutal, very little consequence.
To repeat: this state of affairs, the triumph of unionism, remains obscured, and hence demoralises grass roots unionism, because it is presently in the interests of none of the actors to state it. At the heart of the DUP’s manifesto will be an attack on the UUP predicated on ‘sell-out!’ thus the blacker the world can be presented as being, the better. There is also the small tone related matter that, from the top of this party down leeches a weird ‘end times’/predestination-based notion of imminent doom that never changes anyway. Then there’s Sinn Fein. Again, they're hardly keen to spell out to their dimmer adherents quite what it is that their leaders have done in their name. Beyond this is the perhaps more powerfully reinforcing element of sheer fantasy that pervades Irish Republicanism. This is a creed that historically has found it perfectly easy to live in a world of make-believe, and so there’s no reason why it can’t continue with that habit today. Only the Leader of the Ulster Unionist Party is likely to be inclined to stand up and say, ‘they’ve lost, all we have to do now is stop the Government from throwing away the fruits of our victory’, and this one just won’t. His successor will be less casual about this untouched benefit. Yet who or what should be stepping up to the plate to assist at this crucial juncture? Why the Tory Party. When one reflects on Quentin Davies it becomes all to easy to see why despair runs through so many unionists.
What’s written is written
We started by assuming agreement, bar the Republicans, though we allowed ourselves the luxury of thinking that what unionism, as embodied by Mr Trimble, has signed up for is unwise from its own point of view. What then has been agreed? Very quickly, what’s been on the go for almost a year: that the Provos will make a metaphysical statement announcing that their ‘war’ is 'over', though, curiously, they won’t disband; ‘decommissioning’ will commence with some substantial destruction of the Provo arsenal, though what, and in what sequence is still vague; various degradations to the security infrastructure in the province will be completed; some low-level concessions will be further made to Republicans, despite the diminishing stock of provocations left for the Government to offer unionism (all the royal coats of arms, save for those in listed buildings, were removed over Christmas for instance); and, and this purports to be a ‘sticking point’, the mechanism for suspending the assembly, or otherwise disciplining Agreement-breakers will be altered in a way nominally agreeable to one of either David Trimble or Gerry Adams.
On the sorry subject of the Belfast Agreement, and what should happen to those who fail to live up to its hallowed provisions, there is little point in anyone being naive enough to suppose that, unionism having already delivered far in excess of what was required by it, whilst Republicanism has still to deliver the solitary thing (decommissioning) required of it, to imagine that this matters. The Agreement, as its declining invocation reveals, is recognised for the dead letter it is. What is occurring in Northern Ireland now is post-Agreement politics. This document bears no more relation to contemporary political struggles in the province that does Magna Carta in Britain as a whole. It’s there, it has its place in history, and the Whiggish among us will no doubt hold it to have been historically necessary in order that we could arrive at this present stage of perfection, but in practical politics, Ulster’s politicians and terrorists are not governed by the dictates of the Agreement. They are governed by the over-whelming desire by Republicans to, of all things, make Stormont work. The politics that nationalists are committed to are as undemocratic as ever, in that their idee fixe is compulsory, mandated by legislation power-sharing. This is not an unreasonable stance for parties who lose elections (rest assured, mind you, should ever ‘Irish freedom’ be achieved, it isn’t a peculiarity that will be practised post-liberation).
It is David Trimble’s core failure that he too leads (his decreasing Unionist adherents) into support for power-sharing. During the two decades after the abolition of the old Stormont, a conspiracy of equals between press and state was to not make anything of Ulster’s consistently preferred political future, which as every poll made clear was that refinement of ‘direct rule’ — integration. A characteristically perverse achievement of Mr Trimble’s has been to wean more UUP activists off provincial devolution than at any point since Stormont was established. This unintentional Powellite transformation means that Sinn Fein, the SDLP, the Alliance and, inevitably, the small-time hucksters of the DUP, are all committed to the milch-cow of New Stormont, whereas the UUP increasingly seeks Westminster.
The problem with personalities
Recent efforts at encouraging intra-Unionist unity (the electoral system shreds unionist votes — one signal consequence of which being that there were equal numbers of unionists and nationalists in the executive, when there should have been at least a majority of two for the former) have had an ‘only in Ulster’ air to them. One pro-unity meeting was flyposted with leaflets declaring that a rival pro-unity meeting would be taking place elsewhere. The systemic problem at the heart of Unionist division is the existence of the schist and debilitating DUP. This will exist as long as God keeps ‘Dr’ Paisley from his right hand side, and not one year longer than that. Already, with David Trimble’s notoriously ineffectual executant performance apparent to all at Stormont, the abilities of in particular Nigel Dodds have been reinforced for most UUP members. These are assets waiting to be harnessed, and after the near-certain family victory of ‘junior’ in the DUP leadership stakes, we can expect to see significant numbers of the DUP leadership coming over to the post-Trimble UUP, whilst the DUP withers on the Free Presbyterian vine. Seeing the united unionist party eventually led at Stormont by a DUP incomer, and at Westminster, by some UU stager is hardly implausible or even unwelcome — at which end the overall party leader ought to sit is a matter determined by the sort of Stormont we end up with.
Inside the UUP their recent annual Council saw the traditional election of party officers, which always affords a snap-shot of who’s up and down (out of those standing for office of some sort). In the poll for the vice presidencies, Sir Reg Empey came in top, with Jeffrey Donaldson next; David Burnside failed to come fourth, thus missed out completely. This one would have to say indicates more his popularity within the party, than it does any judgement on the sceptical faction he’s currently attached to. One big deficiency to the leadership style of David Trimble is that he misses out too regularly on easy tricks. As one obvious example, he now takes to meetings such as Hillsborough only his factional loyalists, when what in his own self interest he should of course do is invite the likes of Mr Dondaldson or Mr Burnside to join him. Invariably they’d have to decline, which would pre-empt much of their subsequent criticism, and if they did by some chance agree to attend too, then that would enmesh them much as he himself has become ensnared in and by the process. This failing, which sees the salaries of advisors held out as a deal-breaking issue in talks with Whitehall, whilst his predecessor as party leader loses police protection in Northern Ireland, has done much to destroy the previously collegiate UUP style of leadership.
What might have been done
The matter supposedly preventing a freshly agreed Agreement is that of what mechanisms should be put in place to deal with those who break the rules left over from all the previously broken ones. What’s actually preventing everyone agreeing is what the Provo’s grandstanding act of ‘decommissioning’ is going to look like, and what the sequence of all the subsequent ones is going to be. On this there is no agreement because it requires for David Trimble’s future political health, clarity and rigidity, and for Mr Adams’ health, anything but. Once, however, ‘agreement’ is obtained, this moves from being a Sinn Fein/IRA issue to being a UUP one. For what Mr Trimble will have to do is take the new terms he secured to an extraordinary meeting of the Unionist Council, which on present projections can safely be in pencilled in for mid-April. The very fact of this meeting happening — i.e. that Mr Trimble has been given something he can agree to — will mark the terminal point of his leadership, with whatever he brings to it being sure to be defeated. His future as party leader beyond the Assembly elections can thus only be assured if Sinn Fein don't give him something to agree to before then, but they will, as they want their act of decommissioning done well before polling day.
At Hillsborough David Trimble failed as ever to lay on Republicans any of the presentational blows that they fear most. When the final commas of the new agreement were being thrashed out (the essentials, as I say, having been apparent last summer) it would have been a matter of minutes in front of the television cameras for the UUP leader to announce his determination that ‘no one engaged in politics should profit from criminality: all those convicted of smuggling or robbery or racketeering or drug dealing have to be barred from office’. This wouldn’t have required a single, unlikely conviction, but it would have placed an unwelcome spotlight on those most likely to be engaged in these hobbies, and thereby put Republicans on the back foot, retarding their ability to make demands of unionists. Whatever the glaring strategic omissions of the Trimble years, they have been as nothing compared to the numerous tactical ones.
Some other time, I’ll look at what the Tory party ought to be doing about all of this (between now and then, you should acquaint yourself with David Davis’ voting record on ‘Ulster’ issues in the last parliament, which was markedly to the pro-Union right of Hague’s official, whipped line), but think on the world we have to be living in that the Government can casually overturn elections provided for by statute law purely because their timing would have been politically inconvenient. There’s a thing to throw at the windbags of the fourth estate who like to speak of their role in buttressing participatory democracy, but these are all other issues. Nothing now matters in Ulster politics other than whether David Trimble, at the eleventh hour, finally decides that there’s an offer from the Government and Republicans that he can refuse. That and, as my colleague the Watchman will hopefully explore in greater depth, what impact the greatly cleansed electoral register will have — though that rather depends on first Unionists being bothered to vote, and second the state being bothered to ensure that Republicans close polling stations on time.
What will be done
Very soon, David Trimble will decide that he’s waded in so deep, he may as well continue with the process. He will be presented with a package that satisfies him, and that will be the end of him — what he offers the Unionist Council in mid-April, they won’t accept. In a development entirely devoid of irony, and perfectly straight-forward to explain, this rejection will profoundly strengthen the hand of his successor. Once Unionists have a bottom line, they will find that it is irresistible.
Kit Kildare is ERO’s political correspondent
Kit Kildare, March 9, 2003 08:45 AM