Brian Faulkner: a lesson from history
Northern Ireland’s sixth — and final — prime minister criticised his fellow unionists’ short-sightedness. Fifty years on, has anything changed, asks Alex Kane
HOPES — even his own — weren’t particularly high when Brian Faulkner became Northern Ireland’s sixth prime minister on this day 50 years ago: March 23, 1971. His two immediate predecessors, Terence O’neill and James Chichester-clark, had resigned within the previous two years, unable to command, let alone exercise the authority required to deal with a deteriorating political, security and societal crisis: not to mention the civil war which had broken out across unionism.
As Faulkner noted, “There were even some ready to predict that the sixth prime minister would be the last.”
He had long been viewed within the party as a fairly “traditional” unionist and it looked like he was preparing to challenge for the leadership from the traditional Right wing when he resigned from the government in January 1969 after O’neill had agreed to an independent inquiry into the causes of violence since 1968.
A few days afterwards, 12 unionist MPS signed a document urging a change of leadership. Yet when O’neill resigned three months later — even though the party had done well in the February “crossroads” election — Faulkner lost to Chichester-clark by 17 votes to 16, the casting vote coming from O’neill.
When Faulkner replaced him less than two years later, defeating Bill Craig by a very comfortable majority of 26 to four, he claimed it was because, “I was the most experienced minister in government.. and many liberal unionists who had once accepted O’neill’s version of my politics were now convinced that I was genuinely committed to the cause of progress and fair government.”
But I suspect his victory owed more to the parliamentary party’s wariness of Craig’s maverick tendencies than to any great fondness for the “serially ambitious” Faulkner.
Yet in a speech three months later, celebrating the 50th anniversary of Stormont, Faulkner sounded keen to embrace progress and fair government and announced three new functional committees to sit alongside the Public Accounts Committee: crucially, he said that two of the committees would be chaired by the Opposition.
He also urged measures to “break out of the mould of fear and mutual suspicion... all Hon Members have a contribution to make. But I acknowledge the special responsibility of my colleagues and myself as the majority here to give a lead in that direction.”
Within weeks, though, the SDLP had withdrawn from Stormont, citing the refusal of an inquiry into the death of two men in Derry, and Faulkner’s introduction of internment, which he later said was a decision “which virtually forced itself upon us”, had destroyed the already small hopes of repairing community relations.
Over the next few months, violence increased; 130 non-unionists withdrew from councils; a new Nationalist Assembly of the Northern Irish People met in Dungiven; there was a rents and rates strike against internment; the DUP was formed; and Faulkner came under increasing pressure from all sides, particularly the British government and unionist opponents, including Bill Craig and his newly formed populist Vanguard.
Faulkner now found himself in exactly the same position as O’neill and Chichester-clark: a prime minister in name only, stripped of all authority to either lead or control the political agenda.
The prorogation of Stormont now seemed inevitable, particularly when the British government made it clear that, even if it remained, it would not be in control of security matters.
On the afternoon of March 28, 1972, Faulkner and his Cabinet
appeared on the balcony of Stormont. A crowd of almost 200,000 filled the grounds and Faulkner made what was to be his final public speech as prime minister. The final public speech of a Northern Ireland prime minister, in fact.
He was joined by Bill Craig, who, a few days earlier, had told a huge Vanguard rally in Ormeau Park: “We are firmly decided to defeat anyone who decides to subvert our constitution... because one of these days, if and when the politicians fail us, it may be our job to liquidate the enemy.”
The final sitting of the parliament ended at 5.15pm. Northern Ireland had moved from the crossroads to the cliff edge.
It was extraordinary, therefore, that, a year later, Faulkner was able to persuade the Ulster Unionist Council to give a “qualified welcome” to a White Paper for an Assembly which embraced mandatory power-sharing, an “Irish dimension” and a PR election system.
In so doing, he faced down the Vanguard wing of the UUC and secured the go-ahead to enter talks with the SDLP and Alliance parties after the election in June 1973.
He needed a convincing win and he didn’t get it. The UUP was split between pro-white Paper and anti-white Paper candidates and, of the 31 elected, Faulkner could only rely on 24.
But the anti-white Paper unionists (DUP, Vanguard, a loyalist group, the seven UUP antis and one independent) tallied 26. Alliance and the SDLP, plus one NILP accounted for the other 28.
Ironically, David Trimble was to find himself in a similar position in 1998 when he didn’t get the convincing win he needed in the Assembly election.
It meant Faulkner entering the Sunningdale negotiations in December 1973 with a weak hand: outnumbered by the SDLP and Alliance and with few on the British or Irish side willing to do him any favours.
The SDLP’S insistence on pushing ahead with a Council of Ireland was to make life very difficult for him, yet he accepted it, arguing: “Given the overwhelming unionist composition of (the Assembly) we were satisfied that the constitutional integrity of Northern Ireland was secure.”
The rest, as they say is history. The UUC rejected the Council of Ireland and Faulkner resigned as leader on January 7, 1974. Sunningdale was brought down by the UWC strike in May, but with no viable alternative to replace it. Faulkner died in a riding accident three years later, but his legacy was an important and still relevant one.
Craig, Paisley, the loyalist paramilitaries who backed the 1974 strike and even the UUP all finally accepted that power-sharing was inevitable: yet they took so long to accept this reality that they no longer had the input into the agenda they could have had if they had moved much earlier.
In a speech in November 1974, Faulkner said: “It is axiomatic, but all too often overlooked, that leaders must lead. In these days of public opinion polls, public relations and policies packaged for maximum consumer appeal, there is a great danger of politics being aimed more and more at the lowest common denominator in the electorate... (and to me) the lowest common denominator in political terms is simply the person who takes a short-sighted view of situation.
Fifty years on, as unionism faces a moment as unsettling as Faulkner’s final speech as prime minister, his observation remains appropriate.
But will today’s unionists listen?
‘It is axiomatic, but is all too often overlooked, that leaders must lead