Himself Alone: David Trimble and the Ordeal Of Unionism

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 talks – says that Trimble ‘knows everything about the most obscure minority groups in the Caucasus. He is the only person I know of who can tell you about the two types of Karelians – Finnish Lutherans or Russian Orthodox.’ Alcock, who had been commissioned by the Convention chairman, Sir Robert Lowry, to look at possible European models for resolving Ulster’s conflict, also introduced Trimble to the intricacies of the South Tyrol question. It greatly appealed to Trimble, for it illustrates the principle in Europe of maintaining existing boundaries, while protecting minority rights within those borders. Even though there is actually a German-speaking majority within the South Tyrol, it has been accepted that this region should remain in Italy, but with special provisions through the local authority and with a proportionality rule for public service employees.11 Such cosmopolitanism might in and of itself have been sufficient cause for suspicion, but some of Trimble’s associations also aroused further doubts. After the Convention began, Trimble invited a couple of B&ICO activists – including Eamonn O’Kane, later General Secretary of the NAS-UWT – to place their pamphlets in the members’ pigeon holes at Stormont. Trimble derived huge pleasure from escorting in the left-wingers, one with an obviously Catholic name. Later, he ran into a DUP Convention member, Clifford Smyth. ‘David, there is such a thing as guilt by association, you know.’12

During the Convention, Trimble also came into prolonged contact for the first time with the British, joining Craig in seven meetings with Merlyn Rees and his officials. He also came into sustained contact for the first time with the SDLP. Trimble’s maiden speech was a reply to Paddy Devlin. As the corpulent, working-class autodidact from the Belfast dockyards sat down, the pencil-thin, suburban academic stood up. As he did so, John Taylor whispered in his ear, ‘congratulate Paddy on that speech’. Trimble was at a loss, since he had not actually listened to Devlin: he was searching for his notes, which he feared he had lost. Trimble duly told the chamber that Devlin was trying ‘to achieve the greatest concord in this Convention. It was an approach which I welcomed and I am sure the people who sit on this side of the House with me welcomed it also.’13 Afterwards Devlin beckoned him over. ‘Can I have a word?’ said Devlin. ’Any chance of getting some talks going?’ Trimble said he did not know, but reported straight back to Craig.14 Craig wondered whether Devlin wanted talks in Craig’s capacity as Vanguard leader or as one of the chiefs of the loyalist coalition, or UUUC. When Trimble returned to Devlin, the latter said that either would do. For the next fortnight, Trimble spent much of his time at the Convention carrying secret messages back and forth between the two camps. Before entering the SDLP room at Stormont, Trimble looked down the corridor to make sure that no Unionists could observe him. Seeing that everything was safe, he opened the door only to find an SDLP group meeting in progress: the whole SDLP Convention party could see that Trimble was there. The consequence of such shuttle diplomacy was the inter-party talks which led to near-agreement on the voluntary coalition with the SDLP. Trimble remembers sitting alone in the members’ room one morning, drinking coffee, when Craig walked in and out of the blue asked him: ‘“How are we going to prepare our people to bring the SDLP into government?” You could have knocked me down with a feather. And my thoughts went instinctively to Jean Coulter [the staunchly unionist UUP Convention member for West Belfast]. How are we going to get it past her? But the more I thought about it, the more I thought, “this is a bloody good deal”.’15 Years later, after he signed the Belfast Agreement, Coulter was again an opponent of Trimble’s power-sharing ideas.

Why was Craig, the great foe of Sunningdale, prepared to offer this to the SDLP? His reasoning was simple. In his view, Unionism had essentially three options in this period. First, they could either reach agreement with the other parties; second, they could by use of their majority in the Convention push a report that would be unacceptable to Westminster, and knowing that it was such then work to make direct rule more efficient; or, third, they could force a report on an unwilling Westminster, which amounted to a kind of insurrection. The latter option was not viable by this stage, for the only way that loyalists could raise the people of the Province against direct rule was in a context where Westminster had behaved unreasonably, such as in foisting Sunningdale upon an unwilling majority.16 The second option foreclosed any real possibility of a devolved govenment and meant acceptance of whatever ‘crumbs’ were on the ‘table’ from London. By contrast, the first option, in the particular circumstances in which Unionists found themselves, looked more attractive. For after the success of the UWC strike, Unionists were in a relatively strong position: not strong enough, he noted, to reimpose the old Stormont but enough to regain some kind of local institutions on better terms than Heath had offered to them. They had shown their residual muscle. And loyalist terrorists had even taken ‘the war’ down south in the Dublin-Monaghan bombings of May 1974. Moreover, a growing body of southern Irish opinion was anxious to disengage from ‘the North’ and effectively were telling Northern nationalists that they were now on their own and would have to cut the best deal they could with Unionists.17 Given these circumstances, there was a real chance of cross-community agreement, without which Westminster would never accept the Convention report (a report adopted by simple majority – that is, of Unionists – would not be sufficient in political terms). But even if they failed to reach such an agreement, there were tremendous advantages to be gained by acting as reasonable men putting forward reasonable proposals. If Unionists were for once not seen to be the nay-sayers in the eyes of mainland opinion, there was every chance that they might then be able to extract other concessions from central government, such as an increase in Northern Ireland’s representation at Westminster.

Trimble had no doubts about the benefits to Unionism of Roman Catholics participating in government. ‘It would be of great benefit to Ulster’s political debate if all Unionist parties would examine carefully some aspects of the relationship between Unionism and persons of the Roman Catholic faith,’ he opined. ‘… But let us state what we mean when we say “We will accept Catholics in Government if they are loyal!” Qualifications for inclusion must mean 1. Being prepared to act constitutionally, and only to seek change within the law. 2. Being prepared to accept the will of the majority that Ulster remains part of the United Kingdom. 3. Being prepared to support the forces of law … In present circumstances it would be highly advantageous for unionism if there were Catholics, who satisfied the above conditions, and who could be included in a unionist administration. But they would have to be representative Catholics, not G.B. Newe type figures [the only Catholic brought into government under Stormont, during Faulkner’s premiership].’18

On what terms, though, would these representative Catholics – that is, the SDLP – enter government? What was clearly unacceptable to Unionists was that they have a place in the administration of Northern Ireland as of right. Compulsory power-sharing would be outside of normal British parliamentary practice. But, Craig (and Trimble) conjectured, there were other ways of ensuring that a variety of parties were represented in government: in other words, fulfilling the need for minority representation without it appearing that a gun was being held at the head of the majority. If the composition of the government was voluntary – say, for the duration of a national emergency such as on the lines of the 1940–45 war-time coalition – then it might prove more acceptable. Moreover, few could argue that the circumstances then obtaining in Northern Ireland constituted anything other than an emergency. The SDLP would have a place in government, but beyond the first few years there would be no guarantee of anything. They would be bound by Westminster-style collective responsibility in the majority Unionist Northern Ireland Cabinet, whose First Minister/Chief Executive could hire and fire at will. And, above all, any such arrangements would be lacking an ‘Irish dimension’, such as the Council of Ireland which had contributed so powerfully to Faulkner’s demise after Sunningdale.19

Trimble says that Craig later told him that the idea first occurred to him during his private talks with John Hume, another senior SDLP figure, at John Taylor’s house in Armagh in 1973.20 (Craig now denies this to be the case, stating that he never met Hume at Taylor’s house.) But if Trimble is right, Craig only unveiled the idea when the Convention talks had stalled on the question of enforced power-sharing and the Council of Ireland. Later, when more hardline unionists had torpedoed the voluntary coalition proposal – severely damaging Vanguard in the process – Trimble would be blamed for devising the plan. He was, after all, an easy target as the cosmopolitan éminence grise with rum contacts, who had persuaded Craig to go down the route of compromise – even, as loyalists saw it, surrender. In fact, both men today deny this, asserting rather that it was Craig’s idea.21 That said, according to Craig’s secretary, Isobel McCulloch, Craig discussed the details of the plan more intensively with Trimble than anyone else in Vanguard.22

But what happened next was, and has remained ever since, a subject of controversy – and the way in which the proposal for voluntary coalition was brought forward was as controversial as the idea itself. For its opponents, the idea was something suddenly sprung on them out of the blue, with no proper pedigree within UUUC policy-making councils. But for its proponents, there was ample scope for voluntary coalition in the UUUC’s manifesto.23 Most of the UUUC would have viewed such proposals as mere window-dressing – especially since there appeared to be no chance that they might be accepted by the SDLP. But after the initial impasse was reached, events and positions moved very rapidly. Both parties exchanged position papers on 26 August 1975 and reported the deadlock to the chairman, Sir Robert Lowry – with the specific request that he look at paragraph 8 (iii) of the UUUC document. That portion of it outlined three ways in which a coalition could be formed: first, by inter-party agreement before the election, approved by the electorate; second, by a combination of two or more minority parties obtaining a majority together; or, third, by parties coming together in the national interest during an emergency. Not only did this section – which was drafted by Craig and Trimble – appear to many in the UUUC to contradict the earlier passages on straightforward majority rule but they contended that it was not put to the UUUC Convention grouping as a whole prior to its presentation to the SDLP. That said, it was discussed by the 12-strong UUUC policy Cabinet (on which Trimble sat) and by the three appointed UUUC negotiators – Craig, Capt. Austin Ardill of the UUP and Rev. William Beattie of the DUP. Indeed, the official Vanguard account of this episode states that Beattie saw it and assented after showing it to Paisley and that it was ratified on the following day by the policy committee. The DUP leader later denied seeing it; Beattie says he only agreed to look at the early version, in which the coalition appeared to be voluntary. But when the DUP and others examined the fine print more closely, it turned out to be anything but voluntary.24

Whatever was or was not agreed, on 29 August 1975, the UUUC negotiators were told by Lowry that the SDLP had said that it was prepared to accept the the Unionists’ position of 26 August as a basis for further discussion. As the official Vanguard record, drafted by Trimble and approved by others, then states: ‘However it was recognised that further exploration was needed to see if the detail of such an agreement should be settled. Ian Paisley arrived and discussed the matter with Mr Craig. On their way out to their cars, Mr Paisley told Mr Craig that such an agreement would be satisfactory to the Unionist people if it was put in a referendum first … it was stated that the SDLP appreciated that there could be no constitutional guarantee within the structures of government envisaged by the UUUC and that consequently they could have no assurance beyond the life of the first Parliament and that they would be liable to dismissal if they failed to support government policy. It was also stated that the SDLP had agreed that “the first tasks of the new government would be to wage war on the terrorists”… they also accepted that the [Northern Ireland] Parliament should control security and have appropriate forces – indeed they said that they would prefer the war against terrorism to be waged by local forces rather than by Westminster.’25 On 3 September 1975, according to Lowry, the UUUC negotiators came to him and requested that he prepare a paper on the voluntary coalition and the SDLP followed suit with a similar request: Hugh Logue, then an SDLP Convention member, says that although the SDLP were not at all enthusiastic about this idea, they decided that it would not be politically advantageous to shoot it down: ‘Our view was “let’s see if Vanguard can deliver”,’ he recalls. ‘The problem was that had it become a real offer it would have caused tensions within the SDLP – and would certainly have triggered a vigorous debate.’26 Indeed, Trimble remembers asking John Hume if he thought he could carry the whole of the SDLP: the Derryman calculated that they would lose three to four out of the party’s seventeen-strong Convention caucus.27

Lowry’s paper was delivered on 4 September. At the UUUC policy committee meeting that day, it became clear that Paisley would now oppose the plan. ‘In the course of argument Dr Paisley conceded that there was no alternative way of regaining a Parliament but nonetheless felt that the price was too high,’ noted the official Vanguard record. ‘He said that all we could do was to await divine intervention. Billy Beattie privately informed a Vanguard member that the DUP would leave the coalition and said they were going out to rouse the country against this “sell-out” although he had not clearly dissented from the initiative earlier in the week.’28 (Beattie reiterates that this was because he believed the proposals as originally presented were different from what they subsequently turned out to be.) Craig may have been under the impression that the UUUC team had agreed to his proposals; but when the matter went to the separate Vanguard and UUP Convention caucuses within the UUUC coalition, it was clear that the Unionists of all shades were split by the voluntary coalition proposal. David Trimble, addressing his fellow Vanguardists at Saintfield in the following year, laid the blame squarely at the door of the UUUC rather than the SDLP: ‘At this point, the UUUC panicked. The thought of obtaining an agreement even on their own terms so scared them that they broke off talks.’29

Reg Empey, then a Convention member, says that Craig never consulted him about the idea – even though he was chairman of Vanguard and his running mate in East Belfast. There had been no meeting of the party’s full council, nor any debate at constituency level, and once leaks started to appear in the press, local party workers started to make alarmed calls to headquarters. The Vanguard leader insisted ‘that they had to strike while the iron is hot’ remembers Empey. ‘I observed that we had been the principal complainants under O’Neill that there had been no consultation and numerous attempts to bounce the party into decisions without debate. But Bill had made up his mind, he was absolutely rigid and inflexible. Back me or sack me was his approach. He didn’t take a conciliatory approach to colleagues.’30 Certainly, the lack of preparation of the grassroots contributed to the emerging debacle, but it was not the only cause of it. As so often in Northern Ireland, terrorist action played its part in hardening attitudes: on 1 September 1975, four Protestants were murdered by the South Armagh Republican Action Force (a cover name for the Provisional IRA) at the Tullyvallen Orange Hall in Newtownhamilton, Co. Armagh.31

A more important cause of the the Voluntary Coalition disaster lay in the internal dynamics of Unionist politics – or, more precisely in this instance, Protestant politics. For when word of it leaked out to Paisley’s Free Presbyterian Church, the reaction of his co-religionists was unanimous: have nothing to do with this. At a Church meeting on 7 September, Paisley was told that any further dalliance with the coalition idea would divide the Free Presbyterians as well as the DUP.32 Trimble also discerned two reactions within the UUP. The first related to their doubts about holding their own supporters in line with Paisley touring the country denouncing the proponents of the scheme as ‘Vanguard Republicans’. But the second calculation was, Trimble believes to this day, more cynical: that many of them saw Craig’s gamble as a way of destroying the Vanguard leader. After all, by the 1975 Convention elections, Vanguard had leapt into second place in terms of the overall number of seats within the UUUC coalition (14 compared to the DUP’s 12 and the UUP’s 19, even though it was still third in terms of the popular vote). Moreover, it had more capable people than the DUP and UUP. In fact, as Clifford Smyth – a not uncritical observer – notes in his biography of Paisley, such low calculation was probably not the motive of the DUP leader in this instance: whilst ‘the Doc’ did eventually reap political rewards from the destruction of Vanguard, there was no way of knowing this for sure on 8 September 1975. After all, no one can have anticipated that having gone up the Voluntary Coalition cul-de-sac, and been stymied, Craig would not have been nimble-footed enough to extricate himself.33 But above all, the bulk of elected Unionists were in no mind to compromise on very much after 1974: the Convention was, in Maurice Hayes’s words, ‘Unionism’s victory lap’.34 So when the idea of a Voluntary Coalition was put forward at a full meeting of the UUUC Convention group, the proposal was duly rejected. Paisley then put forward a motion rejecting the presence of ‘republicans’ in the Government of Northern Ireland, which was passed by 37–1; although he was one of Craig’s staunchest supporters, Trimble actually abstained, reasoning that there would be no point in being the sole dissenter in the room (Craig, he says, had left by this point).35

Craig’s offer also prompted astonishment in England – and praise from unlikely quarters.36 An Observer profile of 14 September 1975 likened him to O’Neill, Chichester-Clark and Faulkner, ‘each a Unionist leader who tried to confront the prejudices of his supporters, and was swept aside. In each case, the British public has been mystified by the apparent transformation, at bewildering speed, from near villain to near hero. So before it happens to Craig, the British public should be warned about a significant literary genre, the Belfast Europa school of journalism. Deeply influenced by the Western “B” movie, this school’s simple rule has been to identify, preferably on the journey into Belfast from Aldergrove airport, the Good Guys in the White Hat. Craig has last week been awarded his white hat.’ Trimble duly noted the praise heaped on Craig by the mainland establishment, but not because it betokened to him a sell-out: rather, it illustrated to him how anxious official and semi-official circles were to latch on to any good idea. Far from having a master plan, the British state, in his eyes, was often rudderless in its aims and incompetent in its execution.37

Craig then proceeded to launch a media blitz to overturn the UUUC decision, spearheaded by Burnside and Trimble, and he won the support of the Vanguard Central Council on 11 October by 128 votes to 79 after a fighting speech. But the bulk of the Convention party were not with him and shortly thereafter they formed the United Ulster Unionist Movement. Then, following a five-hour meeting at Stormont Craig, Trimble, Barr and Green were expelled from the UUUC grouping. The Ernie Baird faction was admitted in their place, and Baird himself became deputy leader of the UUUC.38 But Trimble’s own expulsion was delayed. The reason had nothing to do with any innate affection for the man amongst his brother loyalists. Rather, it had everything to do with the fact that as chairman of the UUUC drafting committee he was the main author of the report which had to be delivered imminently by each of the parties. Despite some suggestions that he leave his detractors in the lurch, Trimble completed the task, asserting that it was vital for Unionism that it be done properly.39 After the split, he also became deputy leader of the rump Vanguard party.

Trimble derived some crucial lessons from this episode. The first was that Craig should have done more to consult the average member of the Convention about the evolution of his thinking and the contacts with the SDLP. The sense of shock when these dealings emerged, says Trimble, did much to weaken Craig’s position when the deal went awry and they panicked.40 Trimble, who was part of Craig’s inner circle, initially went to the opposite extreme in dealing with his Assembly party after the Belfast Agreement of 1998. According to Trimble, the collapse of Craig’s initiative was one of the great political disasters to have befallen the Province during the Troubles. Had that opportunity been taken, he says, there would have been political stability in the second half of the 1970s, and an end to terrorism soon thereafter. There would have been no Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985 – giving the Republic a say in the governance of Ulster for the first time – and none of the present political developments. And it amused him greatly when the DUP launched their Devolution Now document on 6 February 2004 – in which the Paisleyites extolled the concept of a voluntary coalition with the SDLP as one of three options for the future of the Province.41