Downing Street Years - Margaret Thatcher [238]
The political realities of Northern Ireland prevented a return to majority rule. This was something that many Unionists refused to accept, but since 1974 they had been joined in the House of Commons by Enoch Powell, who helped to convert some of them to an altogether different approach. His aim was that of ‘integration’. Essentially, this would have meant eliminating any difference between the government of Northern Ireland and that of the rest of the UK, ruling out a return to devolution (whether majority rule or power sharing) and any special role for the Republic. Enoch’s view was that the terrorists thrived on uncertainty about Ulster’s constitutional position: that uncertainty would, he argued, be ended by full integration combined with a tough security policy. I disagreed with this for two reasons. First, as I have said, I did not believe that security could be disentangled from other wider political isssues. Second, I never saw devolved government and an assembly for Northern Ireland as weakening, but rather strengthening the Union. Like Stormont before it, it would provide a clear alternative focus to Dublin…without undermining the sovereignty of the Westminster Parliament.
FIRST ATTEMPTS AT DEVOLUTION
Such were my views about Northern Ireland’s future on entering office. My conviction that further efforts must be made on both the political and security fronts had been strengthened by the events of the second half of 1979.* In the course of that October we discussed in government the need for an initiative designed to achieve devolution in Northern Ireland. I was not very optimistic about the prospects but I agreed to the issue of a discussion document setting out the options. A conference would be called of the main political parties in Northern Ireland to see what agreement could be reached.
On Monday 7 January 1980 the conference opened in Belfast. Since the traumas of the late 1960s and early 1970s the forces of Unionism in Northern Ireland have been divided, adding factional rivalry to all the other problems faced by Ulster. On this occasion the largest Unionist group, the Official Unionist Party (OUP), refused to attend. Dr Paisley’s more militant Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), the mainly Catholic nationalist Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) and the moderate middle-class Alliance Party did attend but, not altogether surprisingly, there was no real common ground.
We adjourned the conference later in March and began to consider putting forward more specific proposals ourselves in the form of a white paper. Ministers discussed a draft paper from Northern Ireland Secretary Humphrey Atkins in June. I had various changes made in the text in order to take account of Unionist sensitivities. I was no more optimistic than earlier that the initiative would succeed, but I felt that it was worth the effort and agreed that the white paper should be published in early July. It described areas…not including security…in which powers might be transferred to an executive chosen by an assembly in the province. It also spelt out two ways of choosing that executive, one inclining towards majority rule and the other towards power sharing. Discussions with the Northern Irish parties went on during the summer and autumn. But by November it was clear that there would not be sufficient agreement among them to go ahead with the assembly.
In any case, by now Republican prisoners inside the Maze Prison had begun the first of their two hunger strikes. I decided that no major political initiative should be made while the hunger strike was continuing: we must not appear to be bowing to terrorist demands. I was also cautious about any high-profile contacts with