The Taoiseach's statement in the Dail yesterday, answering Opposition criticism of his reported attempt to persuade the SDLP to abstain in the Commons vote on the Scott findings, was carefully worded. He maintained that he would neither confirm not deny the report, and that all of his contacts related to securing all party talks in the North would remain confidential. Mr Hume has also refused to make any comment on whatever transpired between him and Mr Bruton in the hours before Mr Major faced possible defeat over the involvement of some of his ministers in the arms for Iraq scandal. And it is clear that, whether or not pressure was brought, Mr Hume rejected it since he and his three party colleagues voted with Labour MPs against Mr Major and his government.
It is not, however, a hypothetical issue rendered academic by the fact that, regardless of the truth of the report, the SDLP carried on as it was expected to and nevertheless the British government avoided the embarrassment of a defeat. Both Mr Bruton and Mr Hume, by their silence, tacitly acknowledge that the ramifications of such an action by the Taoiseach, if it took place, would be of considerable significance for future relations between Dublin and London. The leader of the Progressive Democrats, Ms Mary Harney, has pointed to only one of the implications when she asked how the present Taoiseach would have reacted, in the crisis that brought him to power, if Mr Major had intervened to support Mr Reynolds.
Mr Bruton is an honourable man, and his claim that he acts "with a view to what I believe is the overriding interests of this State" is not inconsistent with an admission that he did, in fact, put the case for abstention to Mr Hume. There has been independent confirmation from several sources that he did so, as this newspaper's London Editor reported last Saturday, and, in the current phase of political uncertainty, it has the ring of inherent truth.
On the balance of probabilities, Mr Bruton acted foolishly for several reasons and the Opposition was right to raise the question in the Dail. As Mr Bertie Ahern pointed out, the Scott report was a purely domestic matter for the British government, and it was inopportune and ill advised to become involved. Secondly, the close relations that the SDLP has always had with the British Labour Party made it certain, beyond the shadow of a reasonable doubt, that the approach to Mr Hume would be unsuccessful Mr Bruton, therefore, cast himself in advance in the role of a failed Svengali (though one with the best of intentions), and showed a lack of political realism and common sense. Thirdly, and in spite of his assertion yesterday that he was guided always by the need to get a "speedy setting of a date for all party talks", the vote on Scott was not crucial. If it had gone against Mr Major, his government was certain to win a vote of confidence a day or two later.
There is an ironic parallel that ought to have warned Mr Bruton. Before the US presidential election in 1992, the British Tories gave active support to the Bush campaign, and Mr Major had fences to mend with the Clinton presidency afterwards. Trying to persuade Mr Hume to abstain may not fall into the same category of shortsightedness, but only because it was so maladroit it will hardly change Mr Blair's commitment to current policy on the North. But Mr Bruton, in keeping the political process on track, needs to show greater awareness of the realities and better judgment.