1967 with his rivals, Faulkner and Craig. Wilson and Jenkins were joined by Alice Bacon, the Home Office Minister responsible for Northern Ireland. Greater familiarity with the region on the British side – limited though that still was – coupled with the presence of Stormont’s most chauvinistic ministers led to a fractious exchange. According to O’Neill, the sniping actually began as they filed into the Cabinet room:
‘Have you got no vices?’ the Prime Minister enquired [of Faulkner]. ‘I see you drank nothing at lunch.’ ‘I’m not against smoking and drinking,’ Brian replied. ‘It is just that my father gave me £100 not to drink till I was 21.’ ‘Oh, I see,’ said Wilson, ‘you’re earning the next £100 now.’ It was some time before Brian regained his composure.209
Bacon opened her assault by discussing how the Unionist government had responded to the memorandum on citizens’ rights. She stated that the Stormont Cabinet ‘had seemed convinced of the merits of the present [local government electoral] system’ and that Craig ‘was reported to have defended the principle of tying the franchise to a property qualification’. Craig countered that the question of universal adult suffrage should be addressed only after the review of local government had been completed. He nevertheless indicated that following the restructuring his preference would still be for a property based franchise. This clumsy admission led Wilson to ‘enquire … whether the present system would still be thought right if it produced a different political result’.210
O’Neill might have calculated that his rivals would relax their resistance to his strategy after personally witnessing Labour ministers pushing for reform. Indeed, O’Neill’s reluctance to confront opposition within the Cabinet and the wider party encouraged him to exploit British pressure as justification for change. During the subsequent Cabinet meeting, Faulkner acknowledged that ‘Wilson had clearly threatened’, while Craig noted that ‘pressure on the local government franchise would continue’. The pair, however, remained convinced that warnings about a possible intervention were hollow and that serious concessions were thus unnecessary. Faulkner’s ‘own impression’ was that ‘if the critics of Northern Ireland could be satisfied about alleged discrimination in housing and employment’, Westminster ‘might press less hard’ for universal adult suffrage. Craig – even after the mauling he had received at Downing Street – continued to hope that the existing franchise ‘could be defended by reference to the process of local government reorganisation’.211 Although their reasoning lacked sophistication, O’Neill’s rivals probably assessed Britain’s willingness to intervene more accurately than he did. Ironically, O’Neill’s liberal image had allowed Faulkner and Craig to obstruct reform without fear of sanctions. If a Faulkner or Craig premiership had been equally recalcitrant, Wilson might well have resorted to financial blackmail.
At one stage, the British Prime Minister had admittedly threatened that ‘within a period of about three years’ ‘Parliament would insist on interfering more and more with the internal affairs of Northern Ireland’. This menace, however, was not intended to speed up reform. Instead, it was designed to promote ‘an arrangement’ ‘whereby the British Parliament and Government would refrain from interfering at all … provided that Northern Irish members of … Westminster … observed the same discretion on voting on matters appertaining to Britain’.212 Wilson had not forgotten how the twelve Unionist MPs had conducted themselves during the first seventeen months of the Labour government. With an overall majority of only three, the ministry’s survival was made still more precarious by the Unionists voting with the Conservatives on exclusively British questions. In early 1965, Wilson had even consulted the Attorney-General about the possibility of restricting their voting rights.213 Following the August 1966 meeting, the Stormont Cabinet had responded to the ‘considerable resentment on the Labour side’ by agreeing to exercise ‘more control over the activities of Ulster Unionist Members’.214
The ‘greatest surprise’ of the January 1967 summit had therefore been ‘Wilson’s reiteration of the theme of the Ulster Members’.215 The Labour leader was so obsessed with this precursor to the West Lothian question that it was mentioned in his memoir of the 1964–70 government.216 At the January 1967 talks, O’Neill reminded Wilson that devolution had been reflected in Northern Ireland’s reduced Westminster representation. If ‘full rights of debate and voting’ were to be withdrawn, then ‘a larger number’ of MPs – proportionate to the area’s population – would be required. While acknowledging that he was ‘aware of this’, Wilson nevertheless cautioned that ‘if the Westminster Parliament reverted to a marginal balance of the Parties, the position of the Ulster members could create a first class political crisis’.217 This showed the extent to which British party political concerns shaped Wilson’s thinking on Northern Ireland. Given that Labour and the Conservatives were neck and neck in the opinion polls, the Prime Minister’s primary objective was to retain his parliamentary majority beyond the next general election.218
When Bacon’s successor, Lord Stonham, visited the province in June 1968, he declared that the British government had ‘no wish to meddle’. With relations between the two governments ‘so harmonious’ and the ‘old differences in Ulster … being put aside’, Stonham had ‘faith in the future of Northern Ireland’.219 The civil service briefed their Minister to convey Westminster’s desire for reform of the Special Powers Act and the local government franchise – but not to exert any significant pressure. The Home Office offered no objections to Stormont’s plan to complete the restructuring of local government before studying the suitability of universal adult suffrage. Indeed, London was still more concerned with Northern Ireland’s economic problems than with civil rights.220 O’Neill had successfully persuaded Westminster to work through him rather than impose reform upon Stormont. In the process, however, right-wing Unionists had increasingly come to regard him as compromised. A report on discussions with grassroots members in September 1968 found that the ‘ordinary loyalist no longer believes that the Unionist Party is an effective influence on the course of events’.221
REFORMING A PROTESTANT STATE
O’Neill was a reformer. His conception of reform, however, differed from that of the British government and the various groups campaigning for civil rights. Stormont was not trying to meet the minority population half-way but pursuing a Catholic capitulation. O’Neill was adamant ‘that the constitutional position of Northern Ireland is not a matter on which there can be any compromise, now or in the future, and I must say, too, that I believe we have a right to call upon all our citizens to support the Constitution’.222 Economic and social modernisation, he assumed, would strengthen the Union and weaken its opponents. Catholics would eventually recognise that their material interests were best served by accepting partition.223 As Irish nationalism headed towards the dustbin of history, Protestant extremism would lose its justification and also fade away. With the expansion of the political centre ground, Stormont could finish dismantling the sectarian and authoritarian aspects of the regime.224 Partition would no longer need to be protected by discrimination and oppression. In stark contrast, the overwhelming majority of Stormont’s opponents saw civil rights reform as a stepping stone to reunification, not something to be delivered in full only after partition became permanent. Differences over reform, rather than its absence, brought politics into the streets at the end of the 1960s.
CHAPTER TWO
Nationalism and its Discontents
CATHOLIC LOYALTIES
Eamonn McCann and Kevin Boyle went on a month-long holiday to Donegal at the end of the 1950s. The schoolboys had travelled over the border to the Gaeltacht to learn Irish under the watchful eye of Catholic priests. This was what generations of Irish nationalists had been struggling to achieve: the youth of Ireland leaving behind the corruption of the towns and cities to seek their true language and culture among simple rural folk. McCann and Boyle, however, were Western teenagers as well as Irish Catholic schoolboys; they had no intention of devoting their leisure to things of the spirit. Late one night, McCann and Boyle went swimming with some girls. The party was discovered by the priests, who forgave the
