In an interview in August 2015 I asked David Trimble if he thought history would be kind to him: “I was at a dinner party a few years ago when one of the guests, a writer, said that history wouldn’t be kind to former NI secretary of state John Reid. Another guest replied, ‘but that’s because you will be writing the history.’ Legacy often depends on the sympathies of the writer, historian or biographer. It is what it is.”
Trimble will trouble historians and biographers for years to come. That he took enormous personal, political, party and psychological risks before and after the Belfast Agreement is undeniably true but what’s not so clear at this point (with the Assembly mothballed yet again and unionism and nationalism looking more polarised than ever) is whether the risks he took have been of benefit to unionism specifically and Northern Ireland generally.
When he was elected leader of the UUP in September 1995 the consensus across nationalism, republicanism and the British and Irish governments was that he was a hardliner. Indeed, there were some who believed he was being backed by a younger section of the party who, tired of the 16 years of dither from the previous leader, James Molyneaux, wanted an intellectual, articulate alternative to Ian Paisley. Albeit one who had “jigged hand in hand” with Paisley during an Orange parade at the height of the Drumcree crisis a few weeks earlier.
But this younger section didn’t fully understand Trimble’s own journey of discovery. Back in 1974 he had been a key member of the Vanguard Party (regarded as well to the right of the DUP on constitutional issues) and played an important background role during the “strike” that had toppled the first powersharing assembly with Brian Faulkner, the SDLP and Alliance. Yet less than a year later he supported the proposal of a voluntary coalition with the SDLP, a proposal that split Vanguard, destroyed William Craig’s (party leader) career and pushed Trimble into the shadows.
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After Tony Blair had changed the rules on decommissioning and the DUP and UKUP had left the talks process, the UUP remained. It was probably the most important decision made by a unionist leader since 1921
When he emerged a few years later it was as a politician who realised that powersharing was a fact of life for devolutionists — which he was. He knew, too, that unionism had to broaden its appeal if it were to survive and that the price for rebooting an assembly of some sort would, almost inevitably, include Sinn Féin in government at some point. Within months of becoming leader it was clear he was preparing to sell that to his party. During the 1996 Forum election (to pick talks teams) his election agent “told me that at some stage down the line we were going to have to talk to the IRA and that I was the man to do it. My reaction was not printable.”
It may not have been printable but in July 1997, after Tony Blair had changed the rules on decommissioning and the DUP and UKUP had left the talks process, the UUP remained. It was probably the most important decision made by a unionist leader since 1921 — much more significant than Faulkner’s decision to accept a Council of Ireland structure in December 1973: a decision that galvanised support for the unionist coalition that wrecked the entire Sunningdale Agreement.
Looking back at the sheer scale and nature of the internal and external criticism he took for that decision (and not forgetting the fact that the two small loyalist parties — still linked to armed paramilitaries — were backing him) it is a tribute to his remarkable fortitude that he carried the UUP all the way to the finishing line in April 1998. There were times when it looked as though he would be overwhelmed by the criticism yet he insisted on searching for enough of an angle to keep him in the game.
No retreat
I asked him years later why he refused to retreat. His answer was typically blunt: “retreat is not an option if you don’t have an alternative that two governments and your political opponents will underwrite.” The response was, in fact, evidence of lessons learned in 1974 (when unionists had no viable or available alternative to the Sunningdale Agreement and Assembly) and 1975 (when unionists rejected even the possibility of discussions about a voluntary coalition with the SDLP). He reckoned, too, that leaving the talks would leave Sinn Féin the moral high ground.
What Trimble hoped to achieve was a new era in Northern Ireland: a new way of doing political business, even if you didn’t like the people with whom that business had to be done. Paramount, though, was maintaining the union and Northern Ireland’s position within it. He wasn’t blind to the demographic/electoral challenges down the line, but he clearly believed that genuine co-operation and stability at the core of local politics might do something to lessen the demand for a border poll or unity anytime soon.
He wasn’t without flaw. He could be difficult and had occasional fits of diva-like stroppiness
It was a worthwhile ambition, for which he went a considerable distance. He agreed structures that had the potential to dilute polarity and fuel much needed political and societal change. And for that he deserves both our praise and our thanks. Had we not reached that point in 1998 it is quite likely that we could have fallen into another whirlpool of instability and renewed violence. People may dismiss that view, but if an obvious door to new possibilities had been closed by one side or the other then, given Northern Ireland’s background, it is not unreasonable to assume that history would have remained on continuous loop.
And it’s also worth remembering that there are people — and we could never calculate the numbers — who are alive and injury-free today because of Trimble’s determination to try to make life better for everyone. That legacy alone is worthy of celebration and gratitude.
Of course, he wasn’t without flaw. He could be difficult and had occasional fits of diva-like stroppiness. That was part of who he was. But those flaws and the present perilous state of politics in Northern Ireland should not blind us to the fact that he worked damn hard for a new, better Northern Ireland.
Alex Kane is a commentator based in Belfast. He was formerly director of communications for the Ulster Unionist Party