Yet was Cranborne’s reputation justified? And what was his relationship to Trimble? Certainly, Major came to depend on him not merely to manage the peers but also to run his re-election bid after he resigned the Conservative leadership in June 1995. More significantly, Cranborne had asked for, and was rewarded with membership of the Cabinet’s Northern Ireland Committee. This body met monthly (or more often, when necessary) in the Cabinet Room. It also included Major, Mayhew, Kenneth Clarke, Michael Heseltine, Ancram, Wheeler, Alistair Goodlad (the Chief Whip). Following Redwood’s leadership challenge that June, the balance on that body had marginally tilted away from the Major – Mayhew line because of the resignation of Douglas Hurd. Hurd was a key figure in formulating the Anglo-Irish Agreement and his replacement, Malcolm Rifkind, did not share his enthusiasm for the subject. Mayhew would start the meetings, with Ancram presenting the political picture and Wheeler the intelligence briefing. Cranborne scarcely dominated these gatherings: he would sit at the end of the table in the Cabinet Room so that he could see everybody and would not look pushy. In any case, he notes, these were not occasions for great passionate arguments – confrontation was distinctly ‘non-U’ – and much was left unsaid.48‘Robert’s importance was that he knew and was trusted by all Unionists,’ says Mayhew. ‘After we had a row with the Unionists over the Scott Report [in February 1996, the Ulster Unionists voted against the Government over the inquiry into the arms for Iraq scandal] things were very bad between us. I’m not good at the Realpolitik of reconciliation. But Robert is different. He was very understanding of Trimble.’49 Yet curiously, Trimble and Cranborne were not personally close. Indeed, Cranborne observes that Trimble would rarely come to see him in this period. Rather, it was Cranborne who sought out Trimble. Cranborne feels that Trimble always saw him out of politeness and says that he has never met a politician who plays his cards closer to his chest than Trimble (the UUP leader retorts, ‘What cards do I have?’). Trimble trusted Cranborne as a genuine Unionist, though he feared at times that Cranborne might not always be in the loop or else might be used as a channel for spin.50 It said much about the British state’s successful alienation of Unionist affections that even this relationship was characterised at times by a degree of wariness.
THIRTEEN Something funny happened on the way to the Forum election
TRIMBLE’S first major speech after assuming the Unionist leadership was to address a reception on the 90th anniversary of the foundation of the UUC. Gordon Lucy was summoned to help and assumed that it would be an historical tour d’horizon concerning Unionism past, present and future. He was not merely to be disappointed, but shocked when Trimble informed him that he was thinking of ‘bringing in the Provisionals from the cold’; shortly thereafter, John Hunter was told much the same. Hunter listened and says that he took this to be simply a throw-away remark. Trimble says that he did not quite say this: he was just trying to urge his party ‘not to display the usual stock hostility to [republicans] and all their works’. Whatever the actual content or significance of the remark, Trimble’s line of thinking ultimately led to a series of breaches between both men and the UUP leader.1 Trimble’s chosen first step for accomplishing the task of weaning the republicans off violence was an elected forum. On the night of the address, at the Balmoral conference centre in south Belfast, Trimble reiterated his public position on decommissioning. Then, he added: ‘It could be that both these matters could be resolved in the one way. Sinn Fein could obtain a democratic mandate and show a commitment to the democratic process if there were elections, say, to a new Assembly. By standing, taking their seats and contributing to the debate they could show whether they are committed to the democratic process and the principle of consent. In such elections it would be very interesting to see what support Sinn Fein actually has. If they took their seats we would recognise their position and could debate with them across the floor and thus talk to them at a time when they have not fulfilled all the requirements of the Declaration and thus be unable to move into formal inter-party talks. An Assembly could bridge that gap until they do meet the requirements of the [Downing Street] Declaration.’2 The address was classic Trimble and it pointed up the complexity of Trimble’s actions. For although he disclaimed any intention to recreate Stormont, Trimble saw merit in facilitating dialogue with Sinn Fein in an inherently partitionist body. If they did so, all well and good; but, if not, then their refusal to accept Northern Ireland as the relevant political unit (and thus the consent principle) would be apparent to all. It would stop the obsessive concentration on decommissioning. But Trimble also thought that such a forum could provide a training ground for the younger Unionist cadres whose aspirations were stymied by the current political arrangements. Local government was so powerless as to offer little to any rising stars; and members of the ageing parliamentary party at Westminster showed scant inclination to retire.3
Trimble recalls that the speech caused excitement in No. 10: Downing Street was looking for flexibility and his speech afforded them the necessary space to ‘get off the prior decommissioning hook’. But the reaction elsewhere was less favourable. William Ross, who was listening with his wife Christine, was shocked. ‘Did he say what I think he said?’ she inquired. ‘And where does this leave us?’ ‘In one bloody awful hole,’ replied the East Londonderry MP with customary candour.4 From the other side of the divide, the SDLP – which would be critical to the success of any such venture – was scathing. Thus, Mark Durkan mocked the illogicality of Trimble’s willingness to engage with Sinn Fein in an assembly but refusal to hold all-party talks without decommissioning.5 Many felt that the reason for SDLP hostility to the Trimble plan was that the party feared it would do badly in any contest with Sinn Fein, which had been legitimated by the ‘peace process’ and which was a much younger and more dynamic party. Significantly, though, the plan was not dismissed out of hand by the Taoiseach, John Bruton.6 The emerging relationship between Trimble and the Irish state would be critical to the UUP leader’s willingness to engage in the talks and ultimately to sign the Belfast Agreement. It was to be a tortuous and sometimes tempestuous process – on both sides – and its beginnings were inauspicious. Fergus Finlay, Dick Spring’s adviser, recalls that when Trimble was elected leader, the Department of Foreign Affairs in Dublin (known as ‘DFA’) feared that the relationships forged with liberal Unionists in the early 1990s – with figures such as Ken Maginnis and the McGimpsey brothers – counted for nothing. It was assumed that those whom the Irish knew best would now be marginalised. Moreover, states Finlay, ‘he was a total stranger to us. All we knew was stuff we didn’t like, which everyone knew, like Drumcree. But no one had ever had lunch with him, or really encountered him on a prolonged basis.’7 Finlay was not entirely correct: Sean O hUiginn, the head of the Anglo-Irish Affairs division at the DFA had first met Trimble almost 20 years before in the post-Vanguard period. O hUiginn had huge reservations about the conduct of Trimble at Drumcree, but also found in his election intriguing parallels with the rise of Daniel O’Connell, the leading campaigner for Catholic emancipation of the early 19th century. O hUiginn noticed that as with O’Connell, Unionists laid huge stress on how ‘articulate’ Trimble was: the classic response of a grouping which feels itself to be voiceless (the analogy held up in another way, too, since both men could be very splenetic!).8
Trimble still saw the Republic as a political, if not a cultural enemy.9In the early 1970s, he thought that ‘the Republic was very close to waging proxy war against us. The role of the Irish Government in creating the Provisional IRA was the turning of blind eyes. Things changed under [the government of Liam] Cosgrave in 1974–5 and as far