‘Working in my Uncle’s pub, the scene of UVF massacre, was good training for a life in politics’
SDLP rising star Matthew O’toole MLA on serving two PMS at Westminster, and why ‘inaccessible’ Stormont is failing the people.
I was there when Cameron quit. I felt no sympathy... he’ll go down in history as a disaster
ONCE he walked the corridors of power at Downing Street and worked for two Prime Ministers. Nowadays Matthew O’toole’s political home is Parliament Buildings, Stormont, where he is regarded as the best addition to SDLP ranks in years.
He is likely a minister-in-waiting. Yet it is not experience at the heart of Government in London that O’toole believes has most prepared him for life as an MLA.
It was working in a small pub in a Co Down village that taught him invaluable skills — premises in which UVF gunmen shot dead six customers in June 1994. They were murdered watching the Republic of Ireland v Italy World Cup game.
“My dad’s older brother Hugh owned the Heights Bar in Loughinisland,” says O’toole.
“My cousin Aidan was serving behind the counter that night and was badly wounded.
“I was 11 at the time, watching the game at home. When the news came through, my dad didn’t tell us. He just left the house and drove to the scene.
“We weren’t told what had happened until the next morning. We knew some of those who died. It was horrific. I don’t want to portray myself as a victim — I was not. It was my extended family who suffered. It’s still very raw and traumatic for them.
“They were badly let down by the police in the investigation. It’s appalling that they are still waiting so long for justice. The spirit and courage of all the families is extraordinary.”
When he was 16, O’toole began pulling pints behind the bar himself, “and what you learn in an Irish pub, just by talking to customers, is far better training for politics than anything else”.
Six months ago he was co-opted into the Assembly to replace Claire Hanna after she was elected South Belfast MP. At 6ft 1ins, with an unruly shock of red hair, he cuts a distinctive figure in Parliament Buildings.
Hanna’s were big boots to fill, but so far O’toole (37) has impressed all parties with his contributions in the chamber and in committee.
He was a chief press officer in Downing Street during the tenure of both David Cameron and Theresa May. He finds Stormont’s operation markedly different. “Politicians are a lot less pompous here,” he says.
“The debate isn’t always of the highest quality, but then it isn’t always at Westminster either.
“Thankfully, we don’t have the grandiose parliamentary language of ‘right honourable member’ here. But we’re not good enough at scrutiny. Our Assembly committees have greater legal authority to compel witnesses to appear than those at Westminster, but these powers aren’t always used as well as they should be.” He notes other differences between politics in Belfast and London. “Westminster has a big social scene. MPS, civil servants and researchers tend to flock around the pubs. There’s lots of gossip. The Westminster village is a real thing. That doesn’t happen here,” he says.
“People just go home. It’s good that they don’t drink too much, but it would be nice to see a bit more socialising.”
O’toole feels that Stormont is too much a place apart. “Look out my office window,” he says.
“It’s a mile from the Upper Newtownards Road, and it’s miles from the centre of Belfast.
“There’s one bus an hour to take you here, and after that you have a steep climb. We’re a tiny jurisdiction, yet Parliament Buildings isn’t accessible for most people.
“I’m not advocating we move Stormont into the city centre, but we need to think of ways to connect people to the place, especially since rebuilding the trust that was loss is so important.
“At the moment we have a very pompous building on a very distant hill. That’s not good enough.”
In the chamber O’toole singles out a few voices from different parties to whom he instinctively listens. “In Sinn Fein, I’m most impressed with John O’dowd. He’s a good parliamentary performer. I always pay heed to Linda Dillon’s contributions. She’s very incisive,” he says. “I disagree politically with the DUP’S Paul Frew, but he’s very sincere at wanting to improve scrutiny at Stormont. The Greens’ Rachel Woods is sharp, passionate and on the money.”
Another politician who O’toole admires greatly was John Hume, who passed away last week. “It’s hard to put into words the scale of Hume’s legacy,” he says.
“He is the most important figure in modern Irish history and a genuine moral and intellectual hero, not just a political one.
“Both he and Seamus Mallon have died since I’ve been in the Assembly, and not only was the depth of feeling for them clear inside the party, but also the desire to keep their work and their values alive.
“It was the most enormous privilege to form part of a
Heights Bar in Loughinisland after UVF terrorists murdered six people, and (right) Matthew’s cousin Aidan O’toole, barman on the night who survived
guard of honour for John Hume outside the cathedral in Derry. We owe him so much.”
O’toole grew up in Downpatrick, where his father was a solicitor and his mother a health visitor. He is proud of the “profoundly moderate politics” in the town, which “enjoyed very good community relations throughout the Troubles”.
He studied English and International Relations at St Andrews University in Scotland. He had thought of Cambridge, but had missed the application deadline. After graduation,
London beckoned. He worked as a political writer before joining the Civil Service in 2010.
He held communications’ roles for the then Tory Chancellor George Osborne, and later Prime Ministers Cameron and May.
O’toole recalls the night of the Brexit referendum in June 2016, travelling to Downing Street in a thunderstorm — “like a prophetic fallacy” — then later trying to snatch a few hours’ sleep in a camp bed at Number 10 amidst the unfolding chaos.
Johnson is a shambles, a charlatan and a proven liar who is dreadful for the people of these islands
“The political masonry was falling all over the place,” he recalls.
“I was there when Cameron resigned about 8am. I felt no sympathy for him. His premiership will go down in history as a disaster.
“He caused chaos by flippantly calling a referendum, and then he just quit. David Cameron is one of those people who is a lot less clubbable than he comes across on TV. In private, he’s more intelligent but less warm.”
He describes his next boss, May, as “extremely introverted”. He says: “She’s fundamentally a moral person, but she’s not a lot of craic. She’s very shy, very attached to the Conservative Party, and very English.
“That’s why she didn’t get the North for so long — didn’t get nationalists, republicans or unionists. By the time she realised a hard border must be avoided she had given the DUP unprecedented authority and had empowered hardline Brexiteers. She owns a lot of the Brexit mess.”
Given his background, O’toole made a most unlikely communications chief for two Conservative Prime Ministers.
“I wasn’t a Tory adviser, I was a civil servant,” he says.
“There are civil servants in Stormont now working for DUP and Sinn Fein ministers who can’t stand their politics. They do so because they’re committed to public service.
“I was a card-carrying Labour Party member, although not an active one, when I worked in the Treasury and in Downing Street. I completely disagreed with every aspect of Tory economic policy.”
He says that people don’t realise how multinational the London Civil Service is, adding: “There were Irish and Scottish people working in Number 10. It’s not like it’s just full of English public school-types.
“I didn’t feel I was sacrificing my Irishness by working in Downing Street. I travelled on an Irish passport during my time there and nobody batted an eyelid. I never felt British, but I recognised there were many good things about the UK state and I believed it was mature enough that someone like me could work there.”
Brexit changed that, O’toole says. There was now a “stridency about the British state” which made it an uncomfortable fit for him. He left his job in September 2017 and went to work for London PR firm Powerscourt.
He says he couldn’t have worked for Boris Johnson — “a shambles, a charlatan and a proven liar who is dreadful for everybody on these islands”.
He is scathing of “Tory indifference and mismanagement” of Northern Ireland post-brexit. “That’s seen by the quality of Secretaries of State sent here,” he says. “With the exception of Julian Smith, none have made an effort to understand the place.”
O’toole never had “any masterplan to become a politician”. He had been in the SDLP years ago at home, and former leader Mark Durkan is a maternal uncle, but his membership had lapsed. Just before Christmas, Hanna approached him to see if he was interested in putting his name forward for her Assembly seat.
He did — feeling it was time for him “to stand up and be counted in politics” — and was successful, beating stiff competition. He took a pay cut to return home but was “more than happy to do so”.
O’toole is pro-choice on abortion and the firm impression is that he wouldn’t be a fan of any Sdlp-fianna Fail merger. He has “a lot of time for Micheal Martin”, but stresses that he is “a social democrat”.
Although he avoids saying so, he’s a natural Irish Labour Party voter and describes leader Alan Kelly as “making a good start in carving out a distinct voice for the party”.
There has been talk that the SDLP could stand O’toole in South Down at the next Westminster election in an attempt to win the seat from Sinn Fein MP Chris Hazzard.
He says that while he “wouldn’t completely rule it out”, such a challenge “isn’t on the agenda”. There are SDLP representatives in South Down well-placed to run and he wants to focus on being a South Belfast MLA.
He is busy settling into the constituency with his wife Stephanie, a civil servant from Warrenpoint who worked in London, and their three-year old son Frank.
O’toole misses the theatre in London, and watching his local team Charlton Athletic, but he has no regrets about moving.
“I spent most of my adult life in Britain — 13 years in London and four in Scotland,” he says.
“I have very warm feelings for people there. But I left because I realised that, ultimately, I cared most of all about where I was from, about creating change here.
“I love being back. Last month I was in Donegal with a friend and we headed to Cruit Island Golf Club to play a round. It’s this spectacularly beautiful course on the edge of the Atlantic. As we started our game a really friendly guy joked: ‘Now lads, don’t be following my line!’ It was Daniel O’donnell. Nothing like that would ever happen in London. It’s good to be home.”