Himself Alone: David Trimble and the Ordeal Of Unionism. Dean Godson

Nineteen seventy-four was the first time that ordinary people started to question how the Unionist family operated. In 1974, no Unionist politician of any prominence took part in the strike.’²⁹ (Paisley had been in Canada at the funeral of a friend when the strike broke out and some paramilitaries used this to undermine him, suggesting that he had only returned when it seemed to be gaining ground.) In the euphoria which obtained after the UWC strike, it was decided that the organisation needed to have a policy. Craig, therefore, ‘loaned’ Trimble to the UWC – in a bid to hold back some of the wilder ideas which would emerge from some individuals at ‘brain-storming’ sessions.³⁰ Eventually, the UDA went off in their own direction and in 1975 produced a document in favour of Ulster independence; and whilst Vanguard was the largest of the Unionist movements with an affinity for such ideas, neither Craig nor Trimble plumped for that logical extreme. Indeed, both men would soon astonish the political world with their boldness, but of a very different kind.

       FIVE The changing of the Vanguard

      TRIMBLE had earned his spurs during the UWC strike and its aftermath, but he was not yet a figure of any public note. All of this was soon to change as a result of the British Government’s new set of proposals – one of many ‘initiatives’ that punctuated the Troubles. The White Paper, published in July 1974, set out a scheme for an elected Constitutional Convention. The job of this body was to consider ‘what provision for the government of Northern Ireland is likely to command the most widespread acceptance throughout the community there?’ The Convention was to be composed of 78 members elected by PR on the same basis as the 1973 Assembly, under the chairmanship of the then Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland, Sir Robert Lowry.¹ At first, though, Trimble thought he would not be a candidate. His marriage had broken up and he duly decided to withdraw himself from consideration in North Down (divorce was then much rarer in Northern Ireland than it has since become). George Green would anyhow head the Vanguard list on his home turf, making it unlikely that Trimble could win even if selected. But Craig had counted upon Trimble to be at his side in the Convention and persuaded him to put forward his name for the nomination for South Belfast, where Queen’s University was located. Trimble had two rivals: Raymond Jordan (election agent for the local Westminster MP, Rev. Robert Bradford) and David Burnside. Jordan was assured of a slot, so the contest boiled down to a fight between Trimble and Burnside.² Trimble won out, but that did not prevent them from working together as the twin pillars of Craig’s operation, with Trimble as the policy brains, Burnside as the press officer. Both men shared a common objective: to modernise Unionism. As early as 1976, Burnside favoured breaking the formal link between the Orange Order and the UUP, which is reminiscent of the trade unions’ links to Labour. It was a relationship which would endure with many ups, and more downs, over the next quarter-century – by which time Burnside had become a prominent London PR executive whose premises served as home to the Unionist Information Office, and from 2001 as Ulster Unionist MP for South Antrim.³

      Trimble’s election literature showed a bookish Buddy Holly look-alike posing in a law library, and proclaimed the traditional Vanguard message of the necessity to restore effective devolved government. But it also contained a teasing hint of flexibility – and one which was to prove significant and bitterly controversial later. ‘An effective local Parliament must have an executive which conforms with democratic principles (which includes the possiblity of coalitions freely entered into),’ he declared. ‘The executive cannot be formed on a sectarian basis or with places guaranteed to certain groups irrespective of the outcome of an election.’ In other words, whilst rejecting compulsory power-sharing with a guaranteed place for the minority population no matter what happened, Trimble was prepared to look at another kind of arrangement with the SDLP. This codicil neither distressed nor enthused the electorate: to them, it was the sixth poll in just over two years. Trimble, initially, found it hard going on the hustings. ‘I don’t think that he actually liked the process of asking little old ladies for their votes – and I’m not sure he does today,’ recalls Reg Empey, who was then chairman of Vanguard. ‘I got the impression that he saw the election as the only way into the political process but he was uncomfortable talking about rising damp and other problems.’⁴ But more important still was the way in which Craig chose to use Trimble in the Convention election. He fixed things so that Trimble would be given maximum coverage, picking him as the party’s representative in a Province-wide TV debate. He certainly needed the experience. ’I showed John Taylor my scripted contribution beforehand,’ recalls Trimble. ‘It went “now let us dispose of some canards”. Taylor, though, just mocked me. “Nobody will understand what that means,” he said. And he was right.’ On the next day, back on the doorstep in South Belfast, the atmosphere had changed: Trimble was now a personality in his own right and was treated as such. Trimble also stood in for Craig in a second broadcast after the Vanguard leader was taken ill, and thus appeared in two out of three of the party’s election broadcasts. This exposure did much to explain how Trimble was elected over Raymond Jordan, notwithstanding the fact that he came lower down the ballot paper alphabetically and had been less well known locally than his colleague.⁵ Trimble secured 2429 first preferences (Martin Smyth of the UUP topped the poll with 15,061 votes) and following the distribution of transfers was elected on the ninth count with 7240 ballots cast.⁶ Trimble was the fifth of the six representatives for the seat and duly became a member of the Convention on a salary of £2500 per annum.

      Trimble, like Enoch Powell, is a loner who immerses himself and finds fulfilment in the work of institutions – and the Convention was no exception. He immediately set to work on the Standing Orders, and on the last day of debate was given the task of replying to all the points made from the dispatch box. ‘It was a baptism of fire for a new comer,’ recalls Trimble. ‘I acquitted myself well and was exhilarated having come from being an almost complete observer of things to playing a significant role.’⁷ Some opponents found his style too reminiscent of the kind of point-scoring that went on in university debating societies. Nonetheless, few doubted his worth to the body’s deliberations. Maurice Hayes, who served as special adviser to the Convention, swiftly regarded him as ‘unquestionably the most academically capable member of the body – although there was not much competition!’⁸ Sir Frank Cooper, the Permanent Under Secretary at the NIO also spotted the young law lecturer. At a time when the NIO devoted more attention to the SDLP and to loyalist paramilitaries – because they were the ones who appeared to have the clout – Trimble stood out ‘as someone with whom you could have a rational and intelligent conversation. London accepted the fact that people sometimes had to make extraordinary statements to maintain their credibility. But although he was seen as very right wing and much brighter than most other people, he would not have been seen as prospective leader. He would have been 25th on a list – well after Glenn Barr, say.’⁹

      A glance at the Convention proceedings gives some clues as to why Trimble excited both approbation and resentment. His speeches are larded, inter alia, with references to the writings of Arnold Toynbee and Alexander Solzhenitsyn – scarcely conventional Unionist pin-ups. Indeed, when SDLP members urged that Northern Ireland emulate the power-sharing arrangements of Belgium, Holland and Switzerland, Trimble was ready with a rebuttal. Far from proving that there should be compulsory coalitions, they illustrated the very opposite: in the Netherlands the practice had evolved over time rather than by prescription in the constitution.¹⁰ Anthony Alcock, an English academic at the University of Ulster, who joined Vanguard after settling in the Province – and who later advised Trimble during the 1996–8