Lord O’neill of Clackmannan
Shrewd shadow minister who helped to free Labour from its commitment to nuclear disarmament
LORD O’NEILL OF CLACKMANNAN, who has died aged 75, was, as shadow defence secretary from 1988 to 1992, crucial to Neil Kinnock’s drive to free Labour from its commitment to unilateral nuclear disarmament.
Though Kinnock was himself a nuclear disarmer, he could see that the policy had made Labour unelectable, and Martin O’neill skilfully saw through the process of dropping it. To defuse the issue within the party, he kept his profile low.
MP for a central Scottish constituency for 26 years and on Labour’s soft Left, O’neill – burly, genial and shrewd – spent 15 years on the Opposition front bench, eight of them in the defence team.
From 1984 he was deputy to the mercurial shadow defence secretary Denzil Davies, then when Davies resigned in a huff in 1988 he took charge of a policy process he had already done much to frame.
Labour had gone into the 1987 election still committed to unilateralism, but a third successive defeat gave Kinnock the political room he needed to break with it. He was helped by the thaw in relations with the Soviet Union after Mikhail Gorbachev came to power, which made nuclear war less likely even before the fall of the Berlin Wall.
By the summer of 1988, O’neill was saying that unilateralism had been a tactic to break the nuclear logjam, and “now the logjam has been broken” the policy was no longer appropriate.
With Labour’s nuclear policy settled, John Smith moved O’neill to Energy. Tony Blair kept him on, raising expectations that he would have a role in a New Labour government.
However in 1995 Blair dropped O’neill – politically close to Gordon Brown, but not one of his protégés – from the front bench. Instead, he spent 10 years chairing the Trade and Industry Select Committee.
Martin John O’neill was born in Edinburgh on January 6 1945, the son of John O’neill, an engineer, and the former Minnie Walker. Educated at Trinity Academy, he worked as an insurance clerk at Scottish Widows, then in the Estate Duty Office of Scotland.
In the evenings, he took an Economics degree at Heriot-watt University, being president of the Scottish Union of Students in 1970-71, then trained to teach at Moray House College, Edinburgh.
From 1974 he taught Modern Studies at Boroughmuir High School, then Craigmount High School, doubling as a social science tutor with the Open University.
O’neill was secretary of Edinburgh Labour Party from 1971 to 1975, and in the October 1974 election fought Edinburgh North. Prior to the 1979 election, fought in the wake of Labour’s abortive first referendum on devolution, he was selected to take on the SNP’S charismatic George Reid at Stirlingshire East and Clackmannan.
James Callaghan had warned Nationalist MPS that by forcing an election they were “turkeys voting for an early Christmas”, and so it turned out, all but two losing their seats. O’neill’s margin of victory was just 984 votes, but throughout his Commons career his majority would be comfortable. From 1983 he represented Clackmannan.
With Mrs Thatcher in power, O’neill was put on the Scottish Affairs Select Committee. When Michael Foot was elected leader at the end of 1980, he brought him on to the front bench as Scottish education spokesman.
Kinnock, taking the leadership in 1983, initially kept him at Scottish Affairs, but in November 1984 moved him to defence. Denzil Davies, a former Treasury minister, was highly intelligent but unpredictable, and O’neill provided ballast and continuity to the team.
In June 1988 Kinnock announced, off the cuff, that Labour was dropping the commitment to unilateralism, then appeared to waver. Davies resigned in protest at not being informed, leaving O’neill to steer through the change both had known was coming.
O’neill came within nine votes of winning a seat in the Shadow Cabinet in 1988, but slipped back the following year amid speculation that Kinnock might move him. Staying at Defence, he delivered a running critique of John Major’s government as it began post-cold War defence cuts.
When Smith replaced Kinnock after the 1992 election he moved O’neill to a downgraded Energy portfolio. Three years later, Blair dropped him. In 1997 O’neill took the new seat of Ochil – again defeating George Reid.
Chairing the Trade & Industry Select Committee for the final two years of Major’s government and the first eight of Blair’s, O’neill set the bar high. The most impressive investigation he set in train covered trade and investment opportunities with China and Taiwan, and took the committee to China in 2003.
O’neill said when its report was published: “China is a very difficult market to penetrate, but the difficulties are easing and the UK’S trading competitors … are eagerly exploiting the opportunities … It would be in the national interest for British companies to take advantage of the economic liberalisation of China. However, we should not underestimate the difficulties that still remain.”
O’neill’s Commons career ended with Ochil’s abolition in 2005 when the number of Scottish MPS was reduced postdevolution. Out of the Commons, he was created a life peer in 2005 and took an active role in the work of the upper house.
This was punctuated in 2013-14 by an investigation by the Committee for Privileges and Conduct into his response to a “sting” operation mounted by The Sunday Times. Journalists posing as consultants representing a South Korean investor looking to market solar technology in Britain told O’neill they wanted to recruit parliamentarians to further his interests.
The paper told O’neill it would publish an article alleging that he breached the Code of Conduct by showing willing to host functions at the Lords on behalf of a paying client; to act as a paid advocate in the House and provide parliamentary advice, and to help establish an all-party group at the behest of the client.
O’neill immediately reported himself to the privileges committee. The Standards Commissioner was concerned at some statements he had made, but found no clear willingness to breach the Code, and he was cleared on all counts.
O’neill was a lifelong supporter of Hibernian FC, and for some years a director of the club. He was a former chairman of the Strategic Forum for Construction and the Nuclear Industry Association and was also a patron of Humanists UK and an associate of the National Secular Society.
In 2010 he was one of 50 signatories to a letter in The Guardian which called for Pope Benedict XVI not to be given a State visit to Britain, and accused the Catholic Church of increasing the spread of Aids through its opposition to contraception, and promoting segregated education.
Martin O’neill married Elaine Samuel in 1973. She survives him, with their two sons.