Power sharing and the Irish dimension: the conundrum for the SDLP in Northern Ireland

This chapter traces the ideas that shaped the concept of power-sharing within the SDLP, and subsequently Northern nationalism, highlighting the significance attached to the Irish dimension as a core feature of power-sharing, which caused divisive debates within the party post-Sunningdale. It will also trace how the concept evolved within British and Irish government circles, where much of the talk focussed on ‘government by consent’ as opposed to power-sharing during the rest of the 1970s. The fall of Sunningdale in 1974 has been attributed to many things, and the popular narrative emphasises that it was an agreement too soon, or a lost opportunity. This explanation does not account for the level of intra-party conflict that existed before the executive was even set up or during the negotiations. Further, it overlooks the very real challenge that power-sharing posed (and continues to pose) to democracy and legitimacy. Brian Faulkner, Chief Executive in the 1974 power-sharing Executive, retrospectively questioned the legitimacy of the SDLP sharing power in Northern Ireland: ‘Given the history of the SDLP over the previous years, and particularly their attitude that Northern Ireland had no right to exist, it was natural that unionists should feel strongly against SDLP participation in government’. The mandatory coalition between parties who were at ideologically opposite ends of the spectrum, including a party that had the demise of the state as one of its core aims, further highlighted the undemocratic nature of the agreement that inevitability would have caused problems, had the experiment not failed in 1974. The emphasis the SDLP attached to the Irish dimension as an integral part of power-sharing additionally eroded the democratic complexion of power-sharing. This has very real repercussions for the Northern Ireland Assembly today. While the 1998 Agreement ended the violence (or at least the level of violence) associated with the prior three decades of the ‘troubles’, there is no real commitment to democratic pluralist institutions at Stormont and instead there has been a reinforcing of the historical choices offered to the electorate of selecting candidates or voting on the basis of their shade of orange or green.

Stan Orme and the road to ‘Industrial Democracy’: British attempts at the politicisation of working-class Protestants in Northern Ireland, 1973–75

As Minister of State in Northern Ireland 1974-1976, Stanley Orme MP (1923-2005) worked at the heart of British government policies that attempted to ameliorate and politicise the membership of those loyalist groups that had successfully brought down the power sharing executive in 1974. Orme followed and extended a government policy of often secret engagement of those outside the mainstream of Northern Ireland politics; a policy that successfully brought about the Provisional IRA’s 1975 ceasefire, but which failed to bring the UVF into electoral politics with the dismal performance of the Volunteer Political Party in the 1974 general elections. Orme’s approach, outlined in the 1975 pamphlet ‘Industrial Democracy’ encouraged workers’ participation in the newly nationalised Harland and Wolff shipyard and was a direct attempt to politicise the Protestant working classes of Belfast. Orme attempted to redirect their support away from both existing militant and right-wing groups that at this time included the UDA, UVF and Ulster Vanguard. Orme’s view was that skilled industrial workers belonged within the fold of progressive social democracy and that the extension of government-backed syndicalist activity in the ship yard would empower the workers and help shift Northern Ireland as a whole from sectarian models of political activity to a class based system similar to the rest of the UK. For Orme, ‘Industrial Democracy’ was the ‘Last Chance for Northern Ireland’ and a potential solution to the province’s ills, ‘If the working-class people of Northern Ireland can be convinced that, whatever their religious denominations, they have economic interests in common, they will be able to approach the constitutional problem… with open minds.’ (‘Last Chance for Northern Ireland?’, [undated] c. 1975 LSE Orme 1/3). Using a combination of Orme’s official and private papers, this chapter seeks to explore and critique Orme’s motivation, his policy, and its effect.

British security policy and the Sunningdale Agreement: the consequences of using force to combat terrorism in a liberal democracy1

This chapter assesses the nine specific clauses in the Sunningdale Agreement that dealt with the implications for security policy in Northern Ireland. It analyses the consequences that these clauses had in Britain’s war against terrorism, especially as the Conservative government sought to shift the operational focus away from military-led counter-insurgency to a law enforcement-led counter-terrorism strategy. Although the policy of ‘police primacy’ did not emerge as Britain’s preferred option for tackling terrorism until 1975-76, this chapter argues that the seeds were sown by the British Government’s approach to the Sunningdale Agreement and the urgency by which it sought a cross-border arrangement with the Republic of Ireland that would enhance the security forces’ powers of pursuit, arrest and extradition. Indeed, the chapter asks whether the Conservative Party’s return to power in 1979 finally heralded a renewed vision for ‘police primacy’ in a more systematic way than that enacted by the Labour Government between 1974 and 1979. The chapter also highlights the theme of democratic control over the military instrument that would remain constant right up to the signing of the Anglo-Irish Agreement in 1985 and beyond. Indeed, it makes the case - pace Evelegh (1978) and Neumann (2003) – that the British government’s use of the military instrument as an option of last resort is fundamental to our understanding of Britain’s long war on Irish terrorism. This is relevant today, of course, particularly as Britain faces another (albeit much less sustained) armed challenge from dissident republicans. In conclusion, the chapter reflects on how liberal democracies more broadly have responded to the challenge posed by terrorism.

The Ulster Workers’ Council strike: the perfect storm

In May 1974 a two week long industrial stoppage spearheaded by a little known group of loyalist trade unionists brought about the collapse of the Northern Ireland Executive and ended a political process which had begun two years earlier with the suspension of the Northern Ireland Parliament. A political initiative which was intended to replace an unstable system of government had ended in abject failure after only five months. Given the time, effort and political capital invested by Governments and political parties in the Castle talks and Sunningdale Agreement why had the outworking proved such a failure? The answer to this question lies partly in the fact that the Ulster Workers' Council strike represented a 'perfect storm' in terms of its ability to destroy Sunningdale. It drew together all of the unionist opponents (and to some degree republican opponents as well) of power-sharing and the Council of Ireland and highlighted the flaws and inconsistencies in the arguments and actions of those who supported Sunningdale. The chapter will look at the course of events leading up to, and during, the strike examining the motivations of the main political actors and the pressures on each group. The article will also argue that the UWC strike reflected a particular combination of attitudes and circumstances at a specific moment in time which meant that the collapse of the Northern Ireland Executive was an almost inevitable outcome.

Introduction

The introductory chapter provides a brief contextual overview of the Sunningdale agreement, the ways in which it was interpreted and explained, the lessons that political actors drew from it, and questions concerning its ramifications for subsequent political developments in Northern Ireland. It goes on to set out the rationale for the book – namely, the absence of any sustained investigation of how the agreement influenced subsequent (generations of) political actors in Northern Ireland. The chapter outlines the key questions that contributors will explore in greater depth surrounding the implications that the 1973-1974 power-sharing experiment and its failure had for political developments in Northern Ireland. The chapter concludes with a short description of how each chapter develops these themes and how the individual chapters relate to each other.

‘Slow learners’? Comparing the Sunningdale Agreement and the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement

This chapter compares and contrasts the 1973 and 1998 Agreements that, on the face of it, are remarkably similar: both involve power-sharing and an institutional link between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The phrase ‘Sunningdale for slow learners’, attributed to Seamus Mallon, masks a misunderstanding of the fundamental differences between the two Agreements. The former Agreement looked to establish a Council of Ireland with executive powers that had the potential to evolve into an embryonic all-Ireland government; the latter Agreement established a consultative North-South Ministerial Council with no executive powers that could not evolve into a united Ireland by incremental moves. This was the key to Unionist acceptance of the Good Friday Agreement (GFA) in comparison to Unionist rejection of the Sunningdale Agreement. In constitutional terms the GFA was a Unionist settlement that secured Northern Ireland’s position within the United Kingdom, recognised British sovereignty in Northern Ireland and established that a united Ireland could only be achieved on the basis of the principle of consent. In contrast the Sunningdale Agreement was, in constitutional terms, a Nationalist settlement that did not recognise Northern Ireland was part of the UK and attempted to bypass the principle of consent by establishing powerful North-South bodies. The chapter argues that the only thing the two Agreements has in common was a power-sharing element for the government of Northern Ireland.

British government policy post 1974: learning slowly between Sunningdales?

This chapter seeks to examine the impact and legacy of the failed Sunningdale initiative on British policy in Northern Ireland. At a superficial level British policy towards the problem oscillated markedly in the 25 years between the Sunningdale and Belfast/Good Friday Agreements. The approach of seeking to build a power-sharing devolved government with a strong Irish dimension proved unattainable in 1974. Over the subsequent years the British appeared to toy with: Irish unity; full integration of Northern Ireland into the United Kingdom; devolution without an Irish dimension (or indeed much power to share); and a variant of joint authority with the Irish government without power-sharing in Northern Ireland, before returning successfully to the Sunningdale model in the late 1990s. This chapter will question the reasons for this oscillating approach. Was it a result of a disillusion with Sunnningdale amongst British policy-makers; a reflection of their pragmatism; a desire to insulate wider British politics from the Irish question; or an indication of a lack of ideological commitment and interest in Northern Ireland in wider British political circles? Drawing on the available archival sources, and interview data from British policymakers, the chapter will argue that it was not slow learning that delayed the ‘return’ to Sunningdale for the British, but the realities of events on the ground in Northern Ireland and the political attitudes of those involved in the conflict. The British were key players in this conflict but their ability to control events and outcomes was severely limited. Sunningdale represented what the British believed would be the most acceptable solution to the problem in 1973, but the conditions were not conducive for almost a quarter of a century.

Cultural responses to and the legacies of Sunningdale

This chapter will focus on the politico-cultural legacies of the Sunningdale Agreement, a period defined by a strange blend of strife and cooperation. It will frame the experiment as a culmination of a certain kind of O’Neillite Unionism, wrenched down by the May 1974 Ulster Workers’ Council strike. The chapter will take into account some of the early promising workings of the Assembly, such as the higher-education motion introduced in January 1974 by one of the last bastions of the Labour tradition within Northern Irish constitutional politics, David Bleakley. This will lead on to the second focus of the chapter, the political emergence of Loyalist groups and the rather more ominous (and certainly more enduring) developments arising from the illegal activities of the same groups, as the Protestant working class continued its fragmentation along class lines, between the forces of law and criminality, and even in language with the appellation ‘Loyalist’ now termed to differentiate Unionist politicians from the paramilitaries. The ambiguous cultural effect on Irish Republicanism will also be considered, exemplified by the Pearse-esque admiration for the strikers rising up against Unionist elites expressed by the Provisional IRA’s Dáithí Ó Conaill. The chapter will fuse high political material with newspapers and memoir, bringing in cultural depictions of the period – such as Stewart Parker’s play Pentecost (1987) – which provide an alternative flavour of life at the time, simultaneously highlighting how the reactions to Sunningdale were rather more complex than has hitherto been presented.

‘1974 – Year of Liberty’? The Provisional IRA and Sunningdale

Towards the end of 1973 republicans were forecasting that 1974 would be the ‘Year of Liberty’ and mark the defeat of British imperialism. In a little over a year the Provisionals agreed a truce with the British. This chapter will examine the strategy of the republican movement in this period . It will consider the thesis put forward by Ed Moloney in history of the IRA that this period was characterised by the organisation being on the military defensive while it was deeply divided over the possibility of negotiations with the British. It will argue that by this time although the IRA was on the defensive in Belfast, its position in rural and border areas, sustained by a developed infrastructure of support in the rest of Ireland made it a more formidable threat than the Moloney thesis allows.

Sunningdale and the limits of ‘rejectionist’ Unionism

This chapter analyses the impact of the Sunningdale Agreement and its aftermath on unionist politics in Northern Ireland. It will begin by placing divisions within the unionist bloc, many of which preceded Sunningdale, in context. It will outline how divisions on power-sharing crystalized between the publication of the Northern Ireland Constitutional Proposals in March 1973 and the collapse of the power-sharing executive at the hands of the Ulster Workers’ Council (UWC) in May 1974. It will consider how opposition to Sunningdale created short-lived unity among disparate strands of unionism, which disintegrated once the executive collapsed. Drawing extensively from archival evidence, it will demonstrate how, after 1974, unionists experienced a prolonged limitation of their capacity to influence policy as British governments refused to countenance a return of devolution without nationalist involvement. This cemented a lasting cleavage within unionism between a small minority prepared to countenance power-sharing and the considerable majority that demanded a return to majority rule. Both desired devolution, but the latter, paradoxically, pursued policies that ultimately reinforced direct rule. The consistency of the British government’s stance on nationalist involvement in any devolved settlement and the absence of a local administration that unionists could focus their protests against ensured that the 1974 UWC strike was the zenith of rejectionist unionism. This combination of factors imposed clear limits on unionist political influence in subsequent years.