The British general election brought the Labour party to power and Tony Blair became the Prime Minister. The Blair government had a huge majority at Westminster, particularly compared to the outgoing Major government which often had majority problems limiting its flexibility in Northern Ireland affairs. The Blair government was keen on getting Sinn Féin’s entry into the negotiations.259 However, this needed to be done without upsetting, or at least not losing, the unionists, especially given that the Labour party was widely regarded as less committed to the union of Northern Ireland with Great Britain. The Blair plan was twofold: only two weeks after he became Prime Minister, Blair gave a pro-Union speech in Northern Ireland in May, while a move towards inclusion of the SF into negotiations was also afoot behind the scenes.260 After some contacts with the SF representatives and the government officials, it emerged that an IRA ceasefire could be achieved if the SF leadership were convinced that they would be quickly allowed to enter into all- party negotiations and a deadline for the conclusion of talks were set (Powell 2008, 13-14). Consequently, Blair called on the SF to bring about a ceasefire in order to enter the process and announced a deadline for the talks. In his speech to the Commons declaring this policy, Blair noted: “The settlement train is leaving, with or without Sinn Fein. If it wants to join it is absolutely clear what it has to do. … I can announce for the first time a clear timetable. The substantive talks should start in early September at the latest. In my view, they should conclude by next May at the latest, when the legislative basis for the talks expires. That is an ambitious target, but I have no doubt that it is achievable if all concerned put their minds to it.”261
The Blair plan worked and the IRA renewed its ceasefire in July, which paved the way for the SF’s inclusion into the process when the negotiations were due to restart in September. As the
259 Prime Minister Blair’s Chief of Staff, also his chief negotiator in the Northern Ireland peace process, Jonathan Powell (2008, 8) noted what the reasoning behind this change was: “In opposition we had supported absolutely what John Major was doing on Northern Ireland and in government we planned to build on the structures he had created. But we had also observed the mistakes he made, in particular failing to get Sinn Fein into all-party talks quickly after the 1994 IRA ceasefire, and in raising decommissioning as a precondition for their entry into the talks.”
260 The speech was delivered at the Royal Ulster Agricultural Society Agricultural Show at Balmoral, Belfast, on 16 May 1997. Its text can be accessed at: http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/events/peace/docs/tb16597.htm
(accessed 9/9/12).
261 The text of the Commons speech can be accessed at:
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SF entered the process, the DUP and the UKUP quit the process protesting that. The DUP and the UKUP would never return to the negotiations. But there was still a majority of the unionists participating in the negotiations. And, although the DUP was the second largest party of the unionist community, its leader Reverend Ian Paisley was a well-known hardliner with an inflammatory rhetoric, who often proved to be an adept obstructionist in any negotiations with the nationalist community. Mitchell (1999, 110) would claim that the two parties withdrawal was rather a positive development, as it freed the relatively moderate UUP delegation from daily attacks coming from the two parties and provided the UUP with more flexibility.262
The substantive negotiations began in October, but the progress was very limited by the end of the year (Mitchell 1999, 126). And during the Christmas break the tensions between parties grew as Billy Wright (a well-known loyalist) was killed in the prison by the INLA, a republican group.263 Another republican group, the Continuity IRA, was behind a bombing in September, in other words, violence was on the rise and the negotiations were stalled. The British and Irish governments, however, were determined not to let the peace process collapse and negotiated a common document entitled “Propositions on Heads of Agreement” and issued it on 12 January 1998. The document outlined the main features of an agreement and declared that there would be balanced changes in the Irish constitution and the British constitutional legislation to accommodate an agreement; Northern Ireland would have an assembly elected by proportional representation; and a North-South ministerial council and a British-Irish intergovernmental council (replacing the Anglo-Irish Council founded by the AIA) would also be established.264 In short, the
262 Mitchell’s observation was later confirmed by the UUP leader David Trimble (2007, 3): “ … without the DUP and the UKUP, we could still make an agreement and the UUP was now absolutely necessary for any agreement, so our position was simplified and strengthened with reference to negotiations with the governments and nationalists.”
263 The killing of Billy Wright led to an immediate cycle of violence and the loyalist prisoners’ at the infamous Maze Prison decided to withhold their support to the peace process. But the Northern Ireland Secretary, Mo Mowlam, paid a politically very risky visit (a first by a British Cabinet Minister) to the prison and managed to convince the prisoners’ to support the process. Source: J. Mullin (1998), “Mowlam visits the Maze”, The
Guardian, 10 Jan., http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/1998/jan/10/devolution.uk?INTCMP=SRCH (accessed 9/9/12).
264 The “Propositions on Heads of Agreement” would eventually be adopted by all the main parties. Sinn Féin initially opposed it but later declared it would negotiate up from its parameter, the significance of the SF’s acceptance was that it was the first time the party publically accept that the negotiations would not bring about a united Ireland (Powell 2008, 28). The document can be accessed at:
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British and Irish governments once again underlined the parameters of a possible settlement and provided an impetus for the negotiations.265