Signs of telling shift in British attitudes

LONDON VIEW:THERE IS considerable controversy among historians about the provenance and importance of the term "the totality of relations between these islands". Was it a blank cheque, as Haughey saw it, or a routine phrase, as some read it?

Further light is thrown on this by an account of a lunch between the Irish ambassador in London, Eamon Kennedy, and Sir Ken Stowe, permanent under-secretary at the Northern Ireland Office.

In early June 1980, Kennedy advised Dublin that the next British move would be to publish a model for governing Northern Ireland in the Atkins White Paper that would be “detailed, ingenious but probably also unworkable”.

This would mean that the British would keep a conference going that even “their own analysts give little hope of success”.

This speculation was based on the assumption that Thatcher would ignore Haughey’s arguments of May 21st. However it also remained possible that such contradictory behaviour would be “resolved by the political drive and conviction of the prime minister”.

By July, Kennedy was pleased to report to Dublin that Thatcher had heeded Haughey’s advice. Kennedy’s conclusion when he read the White Paper was that its paragraphs covering the “unique relationship” between London and Dublin were “extraordinary” and were, “of course, very close to our own analysis”.

The unionist response to this White Paper in the Commons debate was later characterised by Stowe as “lamentable”. He confided at a lunch with Kennedy that James Molyneaux’s speech was “wounding and deeply resented not only in the government but by the prime minister”.

Stowe disclosed to Kennedy that Thatcher “had analysed every line and called for many changes in drafting. Some passages had to be eliminated or completely recast because of her insistence.”

Thatcher and Atkins could now see “that the Dublin-London dimension is increasing in significance and that the answer to Unionist intransigence lies in strengthening that co-operation”.

Stowe suggested that for 60 years, the relations between Dublin and London had been “weakening and diverging”. Each such step encouraged unionist intransigence.

“Why should London and Dublin make it easy for them? For that reason the Northern Ireland Office welcomes the fact that Dublin is obviously thinking in terms of the relationship between the two islands and is tackling the problem on a higher plane than has been attempted in the past.”

Stowe suggested that Dublin take note of the “great significance” of the reference in the May communique about regular meetings. This would put such meetings on a par with the regular Anglo-French and Anglo-German summits to discuss outstanding problems and “would really make the unionists sit up and realise where their outdated attitudes were taking them”.

Kennedy added that “it was a remarkable conversation” and thought it “fairly represents an advance in thinking”. He reckoned Stowe “a man of considerable ability and influence” and drew Dublin’s attention to Stowe’s report of a conversation he had had in Northern Ireland with “a highly placed British officer who said he was appalled by the attitude of the majority establishment to the minority”. The soldier had told Stowe that if he were a Catholic, “he would be out on the streets too, fighting for his rights.”

Kennedy reckoned this remark fairly summed up the present mood of the permanent under-secretary at the Northern Ireland Office. “We have, I think, come a long way, and a great deal will depend on how the next [Haughey-Thatcher] meeting is handled.”