Downing Street Years - Margaret Thatcher [248]
The agreement allowed the Irish Government to put forward views and proposals on matters relating to Northern Ireland in a wide range of areas, including security. But it was made clear that there was no derogation from the sovereignty of the United Kingdom. It was for us, not the Irish, to make the decisions. There was no commitment to do anything more than consider the possibility of mixed courts. If there was devolution in Northern Ireland, which the agreement committed us to work for, those areas of policy devolved would be taken out of the hands of the Anglo-Irish Inter-Governmental Conference. (Garret FitzGerald, showing some courage, publicly accepted this implication of the agreement at the press conference which followed the signing.) The agreement itself would be subject to review at the end of three years or earlier if either Government requested. The Taoiseach also said that it was the intention of his Government to accede as soon as possible to the ECST.
The real question now was whether the agreement would result in better security. The strong opposition of the Unionists would be a major obstacle. By contrast, international…most importantly American…reaction was very favourable. Above all, however, we hoped for a more co-operative attitude from the Irish Government, security forces and courts. If we got this the agreement would be successful. We would have to wait and see.
One person who was not going to wait was Ian Gow. I spent some time trying to persuade him not to go but he insisted on resigning as a Treasury minister. This was a personal blow to me, though I am glad to say that the friendship between the two of us and our families was barely affected. Ian was one of the very few who resigned from my Government on a point of principle. I respected him as much as I disagreed with him.
By the end of the year, however, I had become very worried about the Unionist reaction. It was worse than anyone had predicted to me. Of the legitimate political leaders, Ian Paisley was in the forefront of the mass campaign against the agreement. But far more worrying was the fact that behind him and other leaders stood harder and more sinister figures who might all too easily cross the line from civil disobedience to violence. As I told Dr FitzGerald when I saw him on the morning of Tuesday 3 December in Luxemburg, it was now vital to show immediate practical results from the agreement, particularly as regards security co-operation, Irish accession to the ECST and a co-operative attitude by the SDLP to devolution. But now, as later, it seemed to me that he could not grasp how important it was to achieve the support or at least the acquiescence of the Unionist majority.
Shortly before the agreement, Tom King had taken over as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. Tom was initially highly sceptical about the value of the agreement…indeed within weeks of taking office he had sent me a minute arguing that the balance of the agreement as drafted was heavily in favour of the Irish…though he later became more enthusiastic. Both of us agreed that the political priority was to win over the support of at least some Unionist leaders and that wider Unionist opinion which I felt was probably more understanding of what we were trying to achieve. I was convinced that the people who met me on my visits