Trimble, though, was also in trouble. The novel electoral system, just as he had predicted, would ‘shred’ the Unionist vote: a poster appeared in the closing days of the campaign depicting a splintered Union flag, with the words ‘Division and Weakness, Or Unity and Strength’. Such fracturing also occurred in his own party: at the UUP manifesto launch at Belfast’s Laganside, the late John Oliver recalled Martin Smyth looking round at the large numbers of outsiders whom Trimble had brought in and remarking: ‘You’d have thought this was the Ulster Society campaign, not the UUP campaign.’47 Smyth’s observation pointed up the deep unease about Trimble within the UUP, which long predated the Belfast Agreement: namely, that as a latecomer to the party, he was not really one of the UUP tribe. For his part, Trimble also found the party organisation at the grassroots to be in worse condition than he imagined. His fears were vindicated. In the 30 May elections, on a 64.5% turnout, the UUP remained the largest single party, with 24.2% of the vote, winning 30 seats; the DUP won 18.8% and 24 seats; the SDLP won 21.4% and 21 seats; Sinn Fein won 15.5% and 17 seats. Two points were significant: first, despite the IRA’s return to violence, Sinn Fein turned in their best performance ever, garnering 116,377 votes. Trimble was in no doubt as to the reason for the republicans’ success. In a lengthy interview with the editor of the Dublin Sunday Independent, Aengus Fanning, Trimble observed that many SDLP voters had crossed over to Sinn Fein under the illusion that it would be a vote for Adams’ peace strategy and against republican militarists. These nationalists had succumbed to this logic because ‘the boundary lines between Sinn Fein and the SDLP’, he believed, ’had been blurred by the Hume-Adams pact’.48
The other significant aspect of the Forum elections of 1996 was the shredding of the Unionist vote, which fell 5.2% on the 1993 council elections result. Consequently, the UUP won under 50% of the vote of the majority community; the DUP took 18.8% of the total; McCartney’s UKUP took 3.6% for three seats; whilst the PUP and UDP took 3.5% and 2.2% respectively. Neither of the latter two would have won seats in the main constituency system, but they squeezed in under the Province-wide top-up system which guaranteed two extra places to the ten largest parties.49 Moreover, the UUP’s failure to win half the vote meant that when the rules for the talks were finally settled, the UUP was dependent upon at least one other unionist grouping to push through its policies (under the rule of ‘sufficient consensus’, any important proposal had to win the support of the representatives of over half of each communal bloc). This proved crucial especially after September 1997, when the DUP and UKUP walked out. For it left the UUP dependent upon the smaller loyalist paramilitary parties, who had their own objectives on such issues as prisoner releases that were not necessarily congenial to constitutional unionists. This played a part in forcing Trimble to acquiesce in those demands on Good Friday 1998. Trimble believes that Ancram was very pleased with these results, because they increased the divisions within Unionism. It had long been the policy of the British state, Trimble contends, to wear down the Unionist family, so as to make them more pliant to the broader needs of central government. Ancram disagrees with this analysis: it would have been far easier, he says, if Trimble had won a majority, thus diminishing his worries about Paisley and McCartney (who were then still in the talks).50 But whoever is right, what is beyond dispute is that the Forum election was the first of a series of poor UUP electoral results under Trimble’s leadership – though the decline long predated his ascent to the top job.
SEVENTEEN The Yanks are coming
THE days following the Forum elections presented Trimble with the severest test yet of his leadership. For it was in the fortnight leading up to 10 June 1996 – the date set by the two Governments for the commencement of all-party negotiations – that the pattern of the talks was settled. Ever since the South Quay bomb, despite sometimes fierce disagreements between the two sets of negotiators, intergovernmental policy had been drifting in a pro-nationalist direction. This included the terms of entry into negotiations; when and how decommissioning would be dealt with; and, most dramatically, the issue of who would chair the talks and his remit. Unionists understood the reasons for this slippage only too well. Under ceaseless prodding from the Irish, the British were always tempted by the idea that they could win the prize of a second ceasefire. The nature of the game, as ever, was to give republicans enough whilst not losing the Unionists. But how would Trimble respond? If presented with a fait accompli by the two Governments, would he bring the current process to its knees – by withholding the consent of the largest Unionist party? Or would he break with his brethren in the DUP and UKUP, who adamantly opposed any resiling from earlier commitments, to keep the current talks process alive? No one knew for sure on what terms the UUP leader would settle. And as Viscount Cranborne observes, no one he has ever dealt with in public life plays his cards closer to his chest.1
The UUP’s public position, as outlined by Trimble in the Irish Times on 29 May 1996, was simple enough. He referred back to the Major – Bruton communiqué of 28 February 1996, in which they stated that the opening session of talks would deal with first a ‘total and absolute commitment’ to the Mitchell principles of non-violence. In accepting this report, Trimble noted, the UUP had acknowledged the validity of the Mitchell compromise – that there had to be a decommissioning in parallel to negotiations. The commitments would have to be given immediately and honoured shortly thereafter – and not ‘parked’ as a fourth Strand which ran independently of the rest of the talks and whose success or otherwise could not affect the rest of the process. Secondly, there was the question of the agenda. Unionists were especially upset that the rules on the emerging Strand III were too intergovernmental in character and excluded them from any serious role in renegotiating the AIA. The whole thing, he believed, smacked of a classic Anglo-Irish imposition from above, instigated at the behest of those he called ‘the little Hitlers’ in the DFA and their ‘collaborators’ at Stormont. Strong words – but what did he really mean by them?
As ever, Trimble’s supporters in the Conservative party were fired up by his language. They worried that the Government would dilute the conditions on decommissioning in order to secure a second IRA ceasefire (such as ‘parking’ the issue). On 19 May 1996, Andrew Hunter faxed the following concerned message to Trimble regarding his intentions: ‘Robert Cranborne and I both feel there are too many grey areas, but see little point in demanding more than you are reported to find acceptable’. Trimble replied on the same day: ‘I have not agreed anything with Major. There are too many grey areas. I find difficulty in seeing any differences between Major and Spring in terms of his procedures: tho’ John claims they are different. I do not want to sound too hardline during the election. But I will insist on clarity before 10 June.’ It may well have been that Trimble had not agreed anything in a formal sense, though the Prime Minister had picked up on the ‘vibes’ which the UUP leader was exuding. Major recalls thinking – correctly – that Trimble’s hostility to Mitchell was ‘more sound and fury than genuine opposition’.2 So what was the purpose of Trimble’s denial of such an agreement? He frequently