Himself Alone: David Trimble and the Ordeal Of Unionism

Holland also restated nationalist fears that John Bruton would be seduced by Trimble. But were these justified? Bruton, who was elected as the youngest TD in the Dail for his native Meath in 1969 was not merely the guardian of Fine Gael tradition – the party which founded the state and set up the institutions of law and order. Bruton’s own origins lay in the Centre Party, one of the successors to John Redmond’s Irish Party which until its final eclipse in the 1918 General Election at the hands of the old Sinn Fein had demanded Home Rule for Ireland within the United Kingdom (a picture of Redmond even hung above Bruton’s desk, and he enthusiastically devoured Paul Bew’s rehabilitation of Redmondism, Ideology and the Irish Question, of which he had been given a leather-bound edition by his officials for his 48th birthday in 1995). One of the sources of Bruton’s visceral anti-nationalism was the death of one of his closest friends, Senator Billy Fox. Fox was a Protestant legislator from Co. Monaghan who had been murdered by the Provisionals in 1974 whilst visiting his girlfriend (Bruton recalled the episode to effect in his debate on RTE with Ahern during the 1997 general election: Bruton also was advised by the ubiquitous Eoghan Harris).18 This episode inevitably informed his dealings with republicans. Bruton declined to give ‘sectarian coalitions’ public recognition of the kind which Albert Reynolds accorded them, notably the dramatic three-way handshake between that Fianna Fail Taioseach and Hume and Adams on the steps of Government Buildings in Dublin in September 1994.19

Whatever Bruton’s own views, he was leader of an unlikely agglomeration known as the Rainbow Coalition – comprising Spring’s Labour party and de Rossa’s Democratic Left. Dick Spring as Minister of Foreign Affairs was much the most important since he ran Northern Ireland policy on a day-to-day basis. Spring came from a staunchly republican family in Tralee, Co. Kerry, and had inherited his seat in the Dail from his father, Dan: Spring père had been a staunch supporter of Charlie Kerins, a senior IRA figure executed in Mountjoy jail by the de Valera government in 1944 for murdering a Garda Sergeant.20 Spring, a former rugby international, saw his own role in the government as a balancing act – not unlike the former West German Foreign Minister, Hans-Dietrich Genscher of the FDP, who switched from supporting the SPD of Helmut Schmidt to the CDU/CSU bloc of Helmut Kohl in 1982. He acted as a restraint on the instincts of the Fianna Fail-led Government of Albert Reynolds (backing the idea of a ‘suspension’ of the AIA in 1992 to make it easier for Unionists to enter into three-stranded talks); after moving over to a Bruton-led coalition in late 1994, many saw him as rectifying the new Taoiseach’s instinctive sympathy for Unionism and keeping republicans on board. The policy of the Irish state was largely settled, so any ‘innovations’ by Spring were as much about presentation as about substance. Trimble certainly genuinely disliked what he saw as Spring’s excessive solicitude for the republicans; but it was also because he felt the excessively ‘green’ spin which the Tanaiste and DFA officials placed on events made it that much harder for him to nudge the unionist community into accepting the full logic of the three-stranded process.

Trimble was thus enraged when Spring told the UN General Assembly on 27 September 1995 that it was time for the British Government to abandon its insistence on a handover of IRA weapons ahead of all-party talks.21 And writing in the Irish Times on the morning of his first meeting in Dublin, Trimble stated that the British Government was now taking a principled stance on the issue of decommissioning. ‘Wobbling out on a limb, however, is the Tanaiste, Mr Dick Spring, who appears to have “gone native” with the zealots in the DFA and is now demanding that the IRA be allowed into all-party talks without the removal of any weapons or a commitment to permanent peace…’ Trimble’s dislike of the DFA was shared by almost all Unionists. An elite corps of over 300 diplomats, the DFA was quite unlike any other foreign ministry in the world. In most countries, foreign ministries are the least nationalistic of government departments. In Ireland, it is the most nationalistic (its foil is the Department of Finance, whose culture on northern questions is partly informed by a dread of paying for the absorption of Ulster into the Republic).22 Certainly, Trimble felt that until the Ahern era, ‘the DFA’s policy was that Ulster is the fourth green field [the term given to the four Provinces of Ireland, only three of which, in the view of nationalists, have been liberated]’. In Trimble’s view, they always ran rings around British officials – not because of superior ability, but simply because they were convinced of the rightness of their cause and were comparatively guilt-free. In particular, Trimble disliked the DFA’s leading light, Sean O hUiginn, head of the Anglo-Irish division since 1991: he believes that O hUiginn’s departure for the United States as Irish ambassador in September 1997 enormously improved the atmosphere in the talks.23 Whatever the accuracy of Trimble’s assessment of O hUiginn’s position, the DFA often were able to ‘punch above their weight’. They may not have enjoyed the resources of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, nor of the British intelligence services, but they secured results because, in the words of one Irish minister, ‘they are driven by the zeal of the second division side seeking to knock a premier division club out of the cup in a local derby’. Moreover, because the Irish state is small and has relatively few crucial policy objectives compared to the United Kingdom – Northern Ireland, EU budgets and the maintenance of neutrality – its very best servants can specialise in these areas.

It was Trimble’s belief that no meaningful dialogue was possible with Spring which made him so reluctant to meet him on a regular basis. This view was widely held in the UUP, and was most memorably expressed by John Taylor who pronounced Spring to be ‘the most detested politician in Northern Ireland’: Trimble says that once his deputy started the name-calling, he could not very well repudiate him (Nora Owen claims that Trimble always behaved differently when Taylor was present and was much more hardline).24 In the end, says Fergus Finlay, Spring decided to put up with the abuse for the sake of the peace process. The first bilateral between the two was duly held at Glengall Street in late October 1995. Finlay remembers that it was a surreal occasion, and that Trimble made only one reference to past attacks. ‘You and I are men of affairs,’ Trimble intoned, ‘and you recognise that these are things that have to be said to satisfy one’s public.’25 Indeed so: Trimble needed the bogeyman of Spring to afford cover for his overtures to the south, although his dislike of the Tanaiste was genuine enough. Finlay remembers that Trimble was constantly interrupted by Ken Maginnis and hardly spoke for the rest of the meeting.26 Finlay reckoned that Trimble was devoting far more time and attention to his position as the leader of Ulster Unionism than to his relations with both the British and Irish Governments. Finlay’s problem with Trimble was not so much that the UUP leader had to engage in such posturing, but rather that he was much ruder than he needed to be in order to achieve the desired effect in his own community. In that sense, he was utterly different from the courteous Molyneaux. From Finlay’s viewpoint, this was not necessarily bad for the ‘peace process’. Molyneaux was exquisitely polite, but impossible to pin down; whereas Trimble could be very discourteous, but was at least ‘engaged’.27

Given such antipathy, it was scarcely surprising that Trimble should persist in his efforts to cultivate Bruton and to sideline Spring. Trimble sought to work on a back-channel via Paddy Teahon, Secretary-General of the Taoiseach’s Department. But the DFA soon got wind of the UUP’s attempted approaches and immediately contacted the Taoiseach’s Department and any such proposed back-channel of communication was soon terminated.28 Thereafter, it was all done on a more formal basis. Partly, it was a turf war within the Irish Government, but there was also a genuine fear in the DFA that to give such recognition so soon to the Bruton – Trimble relationship would elevate the UUP leader to such a level as to make him less willing to make concessions to northern nationalists. As they saw it, the full fruits of such summitry should be bestowed after a deal, not beforehand. In any case, they feared an unstructured dialogue when no one was clear as to Trimble’s ultimate intentions. Did he, for example, really want to be Prime Minister of a new Northern Ireland (in the sense of being willing to pay a price on Strand II to achieve his Strand I objectives)? For, if not, there was a real danger that Trimble would simply ‘pocket’ the meeting, return to Northern Ireland and proclaim ‘I’ve confronted the lion in his den’ – thus humiliating the Taoiseach in exchange for nothing. Far better, some DFA officials reasoned, slowly to ‘sus’ him out. In this respect, the state of knowledge amongst the British about Trimble’s goals was rather more accurate than their Irish counterparts; many of them were worried by the failure of the southerners and Trimble to forge a satisfactory relationship, which made a settlement that much more remote. Indeed, much as John Bruton tried to reassure Trimble that the Republic was not on for a tribal adventure and sought only stability, the UUP leader never felt that he could risk doing the deal in these circumstances. This was because in his view Bruton did not fully control his own coalition government’s policy towards Northern Ireland and could only intervene from time to time – an impression that was reinforced by Trimble’s trips south of the border.29 If Fine Gael came to an accommodation with the Unionists (which would inevitably include a referendum on the revision of Articles 2 and 3) they would always be vulnerable to accusations from Fianna Fail that they had betrayed the nation. Even though Bruton instinctively wanted no part of the pan-nationalist front, the fact remained that no Taoiseach could shun Sinn Fein/IRA once the ‘peace process’ had started. ‘As Sinn Fein saw it, the pan-nationalist front meant that the Irish Government would act as buffer and conduit for their views rather than behaving with a mind of its own,’ says Finlay. ‘In their analysis there were only two protagonists of significance in this conflict, themselves and the British.’ Finlay recalls that in discussions with the Irish Government, they displayed little interest in the evolution of Unionist politics, such as Trimble’s election as leader (a point confirmed by British ministers and officials of the period). Certainly, the traditional republican view of Unionists and Unionism was dismissive. According to this line of reasoning, Loyalism was a mere creation of British imperialism. These local surrogates would disappear once their colonial paymasters in metropolitan Britain faced them down, forcing them into an agonising reappraisal of where their true interests lay. But republicans were coming to a more nuanced, if no less hostile view of their neighbours. Thus, the pseudonymous Hilda Mac Thomas, commenting on Trimble’s election as leader in the Sinn Fein newspaper, An Phoblacht/Republican News on 14 September 1995, was noticeably free of the sanctimonious and disapproving tone which characterised the reactions of some constitutional nationalists and much of Ulster’s chattering classes. Whether or not Trimble forged a pan-unionist front with other loyalist parties, it concluded, ‘this does not change the context in which [he] has got to work … The question is, will Trimble push his party in the same cul-de-sac, or will he be the one to lead them to a new agreement with the people in Ireland. An even more presssing question for him will be that of preventing the fragmentation of the Official Unionist Party [sic], as those unionists who would have adopted a more pragmatic line leave or are edged out.’ In retrospect, Hilda Mac Thomas was only really incorrect on the last point, for if anything it has been anti-Agreement Unionists who have been ‘purged’ (and then without much efficiency).

Hilda Mac Thomas was not the only republican with a nuanced view of Trimble’s election. Andrew Hunter met with Mitchel McLaughlin of Sinn Fein at the Clonard Monastery in west Belfast in December 1995. According to Hunter’s extensive notes of the discussion – and he told McLaughlin he would be reporting back to the British Government – the Sinn Fein chairman described Trimble as ‘a formidable politician, not to be underestimated … McCartney will eventually succeed Paisley as leader of Unionist hardliners. Trimble is on his guard against this: hence the populist stand which Trimble sometimes adopts.’ McLaughlin expressed grave reservations about Trimble’s idea of an elective route to negotiations, but he did not rule it out: he opined that one reason why Trimble wanted elections was to demonstrate how derisory was the support for the UDP and PUP, the parties representing the UDA and the UVF. This, McLaughlin said, would destroy the credibility of Gary McMichael, David Ervine and other loyalist politicians whose participation exasperated mainstream Unionists.

Over the longer term, McLaughlin was confident that republicans would obtain what they wanted, which was nothing less than the Frameworks Documents. This was because in his view, ‘ordinary Unionist people and the Unionist business community are far more realistic’ (this was also the NIO line of the post-ceasefire period). Whilst preferring not to have a Northern assembly under its Strand I proposals – on the ground that it would confer some legitimacy upon the six counties – McLaughlin said that Sinn Fein would accept it in the context of a ‘transitional process’ if there were sufficient checks and balances to prevent a return to majoritarian Unionist domination. If satisfied on this point, Sinn Fein might tolerate an assembly for a short while as a tactical concession. When Hunter asked him why unionists should cooperate in creating a united Ireland, McLaughlin replied: ‘We accept there must be a transitional process but it will be an interim phase on the way to a united Ireland. It will enable unionists to adjust to change. They will grow to accept a united Ireland.’ Later, the tone became harsher still. McLaughlin told Hunter that ‘the British are spoiling for a fight. If they want one, they can have it.’ (McLaughlin’s office states this was said in a purely political sense.) But the IRA was already preparing its devastating response to the ‘log-jam’ in the ‘peace process’. Hunter suspected that all was not well. Likewise, Trimble was alarmed by the increasing numbers of punishment beatings and terrorist training and targeting. Thus, at their first meeting after he became UUP leader, on 14 September 1995, when John Hume told him that he felt that the IRA would not go back to violence, Trimble viewed the claim with much scepticism.30 His fears would soon be terribly vindicated.

FOURTEEN Go West, young man!

IF David Trimble stands for anything as leader of his party, it is for the modernisation of Ulster Unionism. This is not simply a question, as he often likes to say, of making Unionists ‘think politically rather than simply presenting a hard face to the world’. It is also a question of overhauling party organisation and of bringing on energetic young cadres who would become the Unionist First XI of the future. Many thought that this was largely a matter of breaking or reforming the party’s traditional links with the Orange Order, but it was more ambitious in scope than that. It took up much of his time in his early months as leader; Conor Cruise O’Brien paid his first visit ever to Glengall Street shortly after Trimble’s election and was struck by how absorbed the new leader was in internal party management and with establishing his credentials within the broader Unionist family.1 Fergus Finlay derived the same impression and concluded that such imperatives would preclude rapid progress in the ‘peace process’.2

The party which David Trimble took over from Jim Molyneaux was antiquated in its culture and structure. Thus, until the mid-1990s, claims Jim Wilson (the chief executive of the UUP from 1987 to 1998) the party would send out press releases in black taxis to just five obvious outlets, such as the News Letter. Then there was the matter of the party’s federated structure. Its organisation resembled that of the Tories prior to William Hague’s reforms of 1997–8. There was, however, one crucial difference with the Conservatives: whereas the power of Tory associations via the old National Union and Central Council was more apparent than real, the analogous UUP structures were invested with genuine democratic significance. The party was a collection of highly independent local associations and affiliated bodies which came together in something called the Ulster Unionist Council. This met annually, usually in March, to elect the officers and the leader. Crucially, a mere 60 signatures was required to trigger a meeting of the UUC, a rule which was to bedevil Trimble’s life in the coming years. The 860-member UUC delegated to the leader and the officers collectively the task of employing the staff of the headquarters organisation. The officers, in turn, were also subject to the scrutiny of the 120-strong party executive, whose job was to make policy in consultation with the leader. Because of local autonomy, there was no common membership list throughout the Province and Glengall Street thus had little idea of the party’s total strength. Indeed, in many places the lists were held in exercise books and people would be deemed to be members of the UUP if they donated an apple pie to a Halloween fundraiser.3 And then there was the vexed issue of the UUP’s links with the Orange Order: as well as the obvious individual party members who happened to be Orangemen, the Orange Institution as a whole sent around 120 delegates to the UUC. Those delegates could be appointed by people who were not necessarily members of the UUP; indeed, as Jack Allen observes, as much as two-thirds of the members of some County Lodges could be supporters of the DUP.4

Concern about the UUP’s organisational obsolescence predated Trimble’s election as leader, but little came of it. There was always something else on the agenda in terms of the peace process, and the important invariably yielded pride of place to the urgent. The group of dynamic young hardliners who had pushed Trimble for the leadership were, however, determined to change things. But it is hard to know, even in this area, what Trimble really wanted to do, as opposed to any casual talk of radical reform in which he may have indulged others before 1995. Prior to his victory, says John Hunter, Trimble always wanted a ‘clean-out’ of Glengall Street and that he spoke derisively of its ‘good ole’ boy’ culture.5 The ‘Young Turks’ appear to have been operating on the asssumption that they were ridding the sovereign of his ‘turbulent priests’. Denis Rogan, then UUP vice chairman recalls that ‘either they were promised or in the campaign thought there would be a gutting of Glengall Street – a whole series of young advisers brought in to drive a new policy’.6

A counter-offensive was soon launched by the old guard. James Cooper spoke for many senior party stalwarts – few of whom declared for Trimble in the leadership race – when he opined that Trimble had been elected with too narrow a base from the right wing of the Orange Order (at this point, says Cooper, there were also doubts about Trimble’s stability and his willingness to stay the course).7 But Trimble was for now the leader and they would have to work with him. The question was on whose terms? The Young Turks’ or the party establishment’s? Jim Nicholson’s recollection of the first officers’ meeting was that ‘it was fairly difficult and edgy. A lot of officers didn’t trust what David Trimble would do – an attempt to do a clean sweep of party people who did great service.’8 Jeffrey Donaldson, an honorary secretary of the party, says that at this first meeting, Trimble was told in no uncertain terms that he was not to conduct any widespread purges.9 Jack Allen recalls that ‘Jim Nicholson would muse that times were changing and that there was now a new regime but it soon became clear that things would go on as before. I told Jim Wilson “David Trimble can’t sack you.” The leader doesn’t really have that power, though he can influence things.’10 Allen’s last remark accords with Trimble’s own analysis. Trimble says that he was gravely embarrassed by Hunter’s claims of imminent purges, ‘none of which I could have done if I’d wanted to’. He notes that Ulster Unionist leaders are in a very weak position vis-à-vis the party organisation compared to Paisley’s DUP (which, Trimble believes, operates on a top-down basis, rather than a bottom-up basis). The leader has no capacity to hire and fire the chief executive, which is in the hands of the officers and UUP Executive collectively, of whom the leader is just one. But obviously a leader could, if he was so minded, recommend it.11

But why did Trimble not seek to move his colleagues in a more radical direction through persuasion and influence? Partly, because he can be disorganised and often cannot see things through to their conclusion: in that sense, his déformation professionelle is as much that of the chaotic, overburdened university lecturer as it is the hyper-legalism of the academic lawyer. There is also a sense in which he is like a butterfly: he often cannot stick to an objective and rapidly moves on to the next, more interesting topic. (Jack Allen recalls that in his frenetic early days as leader, he would not delegate to anyone, to the point of insisting on doing the photocopying himself. In this sense, he was rather like Molyneaux.)12 But it is also the case that party reform was less than radical because the UUP establishment grew accustomed to his face – and he grew comfortable with them. Moreover, as he lost his original base of ‘Young Turks’ because of his compromises with the British Government and with Irish nationalism, he increasingly needed the old guard to push through his policy on the peace process. A complete overhaul of the UUP party risked stirring up a hornets’ nest of vested interests, which could imperil his immediate policy objectives. Indeed, Trimble was to discover that he could construct a kind of ‘New Unionism’ with ‘Old Unionists’.

But one seemingly minor change in the way that party business was conducted turned out to Trimble’s great long-term advantage: shortly after he became chairman in early 1996, Denis Rogan increased the numbers of party executive meetings from four to six per annum, including two on Saturdays. The purpose was to ensure that the party was more thoroughly involved in the decision-making process, a concept which Trimble heartily endorsed.13 As a result, crucial moments in the ‘peace process’ were punctuated by these meetings, which ratified their leader’s decisions. Would he surmount the extra hurdles at each stage of the emerging deal? It could have turned into a disaster for Trimble, but in fact he turned them to his advantage. First of all, by giving at least the appearance of openness, he sought to scotch the notion that secret deals were being cooked up at No. 10 or elsewhere between the UUP leader and the two Governments. Second, by giving Trimble a chance to speak more often, it played to his strength – mastery of complexities of the talks process, allowing him to ‘blind them with science’. Third, by having to account to this increased number of meetings, which could have rejected his policies, Trimble was able to create a sense of crisis. He thus used his weakness to give himself extra bargaining leverage with the Governments, because he had to give the UUP Executive something when they met.

But such innovation was a rare exception. In practice, Trimble has proven reluctant to pay much of a price to achieve party reform. This tendency was illustrated by his reaction to the debate on the link with the Orange Order, at his first party conference as leader. Trimble had never wanted to break the connection entirely, but he did want it substantially modified.14 Partly, he was motivated by a wish to see the UUP as a voice of new, civic unionism which would attract Catholic members put off by its sectarian tinge. But he also knew that even if such change was accomplished, there would be comparatively few gains amongst the Catholic population. Rather, his real motive was to make the UUP attractive once again to middle-class Protestants who found the connection to the Loyal Orders an embarrassment. Trimble felt that Unionism could ill afford the Protestant middle classes’ continuing opt-out from politics – to which he was such a marked exception. At the party conference at Portrush, Co. Antrim in October 1995, he pitched not only for a common membership but also for reform of the delegate structure. Henceforth, the UUC and the Executive would be composed only of association and branch representatives. In other words, no one would sit on them as representatives of the Orange Order per se. Of course, individual Orangemen would still sit on the ruling councils of the party as constituency representatives, and he hoped that this innovation would actually stimulate more of them to participate: many supposed that if the Loyal Orders were formally represented then they need do nothing themselves.15 But despite the standing ovation which he received for his address, and notwithstanding what the Orange Standard called his almost Harold McCusker-like ‘cult figure’ status amongst the brethren in north Armagh, reforming the link with the Orange Order proved harder to effect in practice.16 Partly, he did not succeed because of the unexpected. During the debate at Portrush, Drew Nelson pronounced that ‘in a sense this party was a child of the Orange Order, but the child has now grown up’: much heckling and booing ensued.17 Trimble believes that Nelson’s undiplomatic sally polarised debate and caused it to go off the rails. The officers then had to calm things down and they opted for a compromise resolution calling for a top-level review.18 It was passed by a two to one margin, but little change has been effected since.19 Many compared this task to Tony Blair’s recasting of his party’s relations with the trade unions. In truth, Trimble failed not because of Drew Nelson’s candour but because he had not done the necessary preparatory work; for all his admiration of New Labour, he lacked the Blairite zeal and organisational ruthlessness to push such changes through. Later, this would greatly irritate Irish nationalists, who believed that a failure to purge such elements made for perpetual crises in Unionism and condemned Trimble to endless narrow margins within the UUC.