Roy Hattersley: The emergency measure that lasted 35 years
[Roy Hattersley is a British Labour Party politician, author and journalist. He served as Deputy Leader of the Labour Party from 1983 to 1992.]
At a little after 1 o’clock on Friday, August 14, 1969, I was having lunch in a London restaurant when the formidable figure of General Sir Victor FitzGeorge-Balfour, Deputy Chief of the General Staff, appeared at the table and addressed me in tones of deep reproach.
Did I not realise that a meeting would take place in Downing Street that afternoon at which, unless action was swiftly taken, the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary would agree to troops being deployed on the streets of Londonderry “in support of the civil power”? James Chichester-Clark, the Northern Ireland Prime Minister, and “a Miss Bernadette Devlin” had both sent messages to the Cabinet Office warning that the alternative was slaughter.
It was not the first request for help the Ministry of Defence had received. On the previous Sunday, the Royal Ulster Constabulary had issued an early morning call for help. General Ian Freeland, General Officer Commanding Northern Ireland, was, the civil servants assured me, adamant that the police could hold the line. So I — glorying in the title of Minister of Defence but deputising for the Secretary of State, Denis Healey, who was in hospital — advised the Home Secretary to say no. Much to my relief, the Prime Minister endorsed that initial decision. “Quite right,” Harold Wilson said. “Once the troops are on the streets, they may be there for weeks or even months.”
But five days later, at 3 o’clock on Friday, August 14, 1969 — on the second time of asking — I signed the required order. Troops were on the streets for the next 35 years.
At first, despite what the mythmakers now claim, the soldiers were welcomed by the overwhelming majority of both Northern Ireland communities. Protestants saw their presence as proof of the indissoluble Union and Roman Catholics believed that they would guarantee the protection that the RUC, and the paramilitary B-Specials, had often been unable (and sometimes unwilling) to provide.
During the autumn of 1969, I took through the House of Commons the Bill that created the Ulster Defence Regiment. Its purpose — the replacement of the almost exclusively Protestant B-Specials — might have been expected to attract the support of the Ulster Catholic minority. Bernadette Devlin, by then an MP and the leader of the militant wing of the civil rights movement, did not see it that way. During its examination in the Committee of the Whole House she expressed her considered opinion by running at Reginald Maudling, who was leading for the opposition, and pulling his hair. Alec Douglas-Home, who sat beside him on the front bench, defended his colleague by taking a silk handkerchief from his top pocket and flicking it at the assailant.
After the Bill had become an Act — the Commons authorities having dismissed Miss Devlin’s claims that I acted under its provisions before it became law — I made a tour of B-Special depots to explain that their transfer to the Ulster Defence Regiment was welcome and essential. On every occasion, my announcement was received with courteous incredulity. “Do you mean you want us to serve side by side with Catholics?”
Despite that, it was not until Easter 1974 — and back in government after four years in opposition — that I understood the full extent of Orange obduracy. On Maundy Thursday, a Cabinet Committee met in Downing Street to consider how to respond to the strike that Belfast shipyard workers had called to protest against — and, if possible, to prevent — the implementation of the Sunningdale Agreement and power-sharing. Fearful that the strike would spread, the collective decision was to capitulate. That probably put back the peace process by ten years.
I had believed, in both government and opposition, that once the genuine Catholic grievances were remedied, a peaceful solution would be swiftly achieved.
But I should have known better...
Read entire article at Times (UK)
At a little after 1 o’clock on Friday, August 14, 1969, I was having lunch in a London restaurant when the formidable figure of General Sir Victor FitzGeorge-Balfour, Deputy Chief of the General Staff, appeared at the table and addressed me in tones of deep reproach.
Did I not realise that a meeting would take place in Downing Street that afternoon at which, unless action was swiftly taken, the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary would agree to troops being deployed on the streets of Londonderry “in support of the civil power”? James Chichester-Clark, the Northern Ireland Prime Minister, and “a Miss Bernadette Devlin” had both sent messages to the Cabinet Office warning that the alternative was slaughter.
It was not the first request for help the Ministry of Defence had received. On the previous Sunday, the Royal Ulster Constabulary had issued an early morning call for help. General Ian Freeland, General Officer Commanding Northern Ireland, was, the civil servants assured me, adamant that the police could hold the line. So I — glorying in the title of Minister of Defence but deputising for the Secretary of State, Denis Healey, who was in hospital — advised the Home Secretary to say no. Much to my relief, the Prime Minister endorsed that initial decision. “Quite right,” Harold Wilson said. “Once the troops are on the streets, they may be there for weeks or even months.”
But five days later, at 3 o’clock on Friday, August 14, 1969 — on the second time of asking — I signed the required order. Troops were on the streets for the next 35 years.
At first, despite what the mythmakers now claim, the soldiers were welcomed by the overwhelming majority of both Northern Ireland communities. Protestants saw their presence as proof of the indissoluble Union and Roman Catholics believed that they would guarantee the protection that the RUC, and the paramilitary B-Specials, had often been unable (and sometimes unwilling) to provide.
During the autumn of 1969, I took through the House of Commons the Bill that created the Ulster Defence Regiment. Its purpose — the replacement of the almost exclusively Protestant B-Specials — might have been expected to attract the support of the Ulster Catholic minority. Bernadette Devlin, by then an MP and the leader of the militant wing of the civil rights movement, did not see it that way. During its examination in the Committee of the Whole House she expressed her considered opinion by running at Reginald Maudling, who was leading for the opposition, and pulling his hair. Alec Douglas-Home, who sat beside him on the front bench, defended his colleague by taking a silk handkerchief from his top pocket and flicking it at the assailant.
After the Bill had become an Act — the Commons authorities having dismissed Miss Devlin’s claims that I acted under its provisions before it became law — I made a tour of B-Special depots to explain that their transfer to the Ulster Defence Regiment was welcome and essential. On every occasion, my announcement was received with courteous incredulity. “Do you mean you want us to serve side by side with Catholics?”
Despite that, it was not until Easter 1974 — and back in government after four years in opposition — that I understood the full extent of Orange obduracy. On Maundy Thursday, a Cabinet Committee met in Downing Street to consider how to respond to the strike that Belfast shipyard workers had called to protest against — and, if possible, to prevent — the implementation of the Sunningdale Agreement and power-sharing. Fearful that the strike would spread, the collective decision was to capitulate. That probably put back the peace process by ten years.
I had believed, in both government and opposition, that once the genuine Catholic grievances were remedied, a peaceful solution would be swiftly achieved.
But I should have known better...