Sadly, but inevitably, Tony Blair is likely to be most remembered for the disastrous alliance with George W Bush that embroiled Britain in the invasion of Iraq, with consequences that we all know about. He deserves, however, to be remembered for much else, not least the role he played in bringing peace to Northern Ireland, a prize that had eluded all British prime ministers for 100 years.
Peace in Ireland was not just something that happened on Blair’s watch but an achievement that he personally drove through over the course of a decade, in the teeth of great odds, with extraordinary perseverance, patience, attention to detail and, above all, political will.
It wasn’t all the work of one man. Many others – Bertie Ahern, Bill Clinton, John Major, Jonathan Powell and, ultimately (with varying degrees of enthusiasm), political leaders in Northern Ireland – played a part, and they are all credited here. Above all, however, the achievement was Blair’s.
Alastair Campbell was at Blair’s side for the first six of the 10 years that it took to bring about a settlement. Campbell is already the author of four huge volumes of diaries offering the definitive account of life at the Blair court from the moment that Blair became Labour leader, in July 1994, until Campbell’s departure, in August 2003. This account of the tortuous Irish peace process is distilled from the diaries he kept during that time.
Officially Campbell was merely the British government’s chief spokesman, but in reality he was much more than that. He enjoyed total access, and his relationship with Blair was one of equals. He never hesitated to tell his master when he thought he was wrong nor occasionally to poke fun at him, especially for Blair’s notoriously casual dress sense. There is a wonderful moment when they are visiting George Bush in Washington and Blair dons something strongly resembling a vest. “I said you can’t wear that, and he said why not? I said because it’s a f***ing vest and you’re the prime minister.”
Blair hit the ground running. “TB worried about Ireland,” begins Campbell’s diary for May 7th, 1997, six days after Labour’s landslide election victory. “TB said he reckoned he could see a way of sorting the Northern Ireland problem,” records Campbell on May 12th. He adds: “I said what makes you think you could do it when no one else could?” By May 16th Blair is on his first visit to Belfast as prime minister, publicly offering to talk to Sinn Féin without first demanding a ceasefire.
It was the beginning of a long, rocky road. By December 1997 Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness are making the first of many visits to Downing Street. “So this is the room where all the damage was done,” remarks McGuinness on being shown the cabinet room. For an awkward moment everyone thinks he is referring to the IRA mortar bomb that landed in the Number 10 garden in February 1991. “No, I meant 1921,” says McGuinness to general relief.
On another occasion, at a meeting with loyalists, there is a face that Campbell doesn’t recognise. “Who is that?” he asks an official. “Double murderer,” comes the scribbled reply.
Irish domination
The extent to which Ireland dominated Blair's first term is astonishing and might have caused resentment in other parts of the UK had it been widely known. "TB called early, worried about Ireland," begins a typical entry. "The day was mainly given over to Northern Ireland," says another, after an overnight flight from a G8 summit in Colorado. And this on a visit to Japan: "TB had been up till 3am arguing with various people over the Irish situation . . . As soon as he was up, in between meetings in Tokyo, he was on the phone again."
One has to pinch oneself to realise how much else was going on during the same period: the war in Kosovo, the oil tanker drivers’ strike, the foot-and-mouth outbreak.
Much of the minutiae, no doubt of great importance to the parties concerned, were as angels on pinheads to ordinary mortals. Because none of those involved would deal with anyone less than the prime minister, Blair was required to immerse himself in extraordinary levels of detail. To their frustration, successive secretaries of state, Mo Mowlam and, later, Peter Mandelson, were often sidelined. The Mo Mowlam depicted here is not the saintly figure of popular mythology. Although she played an important part in the early stages of the peace process, she was eventually reshuffled because she had lost the confidence of the unionists. Thereafter she behaves badly.
The Belfast Agreement was signed on April 10th, 1998, after an all-night session that went right to the wire. It was dramatic stuff. At a key moment in the early hours of the morning, the US president, Bill Clinton, was called upon to lean on Sinn Féin. Clinton is one of the heroes of this story, popping up at crucial moments to help keep the show on the road.
Campbell also speaks highly of the then taoiseach, Bertie Ahern. “My most powerful memory of him was his return to the talks (on the day of his mother’s funeral), still in black tie. Putting his public duties ahead of his private grief, and doing so with a commitment and tolerance of abuse from some of the participants that was beyond the call of duty.”
The Northern Ireland parties emerge less well. David Trimble in particular comes over as weak and vacillating, under constant pressure from the hard men in his rank and file and either unable or incapable of offering strong leadership. Despite his best efforts, Blair finds it hard to like the unionists. Adams and McGuinness he finds more impressive: “I know these guys get up to bad stuff, but I find them nicer and more intelligent than the other side.” Later, however, Blair’s frustration with all of them boils over. It was to be another three years before the IRA began to disarm.
In the euphoria that followed the Belfast Agreement it would have been hard to envisage that it would be another nine years until, just two months before Blair stepped down as prime minister, the 1998 agreement was fully implemented. Along the way there would be many upsets and disappointments.
When it comes to colour and immediacy Campbell is unbeatable, but the weakness of this book is that it finishes with his retirement, in August 2003, when the peace process still had another four years to run. Those who want the whole story will need to look elsewhere, notably to Great Hatred, Little Room: Making Peace in Northern Ireland, the account by Blair's chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, who was there to the end.
Chris Mullin is a former Labour minister in the UK.
