Political commentary

Victory at Coleraine

John Grigg

Last week was a triumphant one for Yorkshire (the English Texas), with Geoffrey Boycott's hundredth hundred in the Headingley Test, and Roy Mason's masterly stage-management of the Queen's Jubilee visit to Northern Ireland. Needless to say, the Ulster visit was also a very great triumph for the Queen and Prince Philip, who did their stuff magnificently. But Mr Mason was really the principal victor, because it was due to him that the programme went forward as planned despite IRA threats, and due to him that the visit took place at all.

Since the current Ulster troubles began the Queen was advised not to go to Ulster — or at any rate not advised to go there — until Mr Mason became secretary of state. The most afflicted part of the United Kingdom was thus treated as a no-go area for the British monarchy, and those subjects of the Queen most in need of a boost to their morale were denied her presence. This can hardly have been her wish, but in such a sensitive political matter she has to act on 'advice'.

' Even at the beginning of last week there was no lack of silly talk about the 'unwarrantable' danger to which she was being exposed, and if anything had gone seriously wrong Mr Mason's career (to say nothing of his life) would have been forfeit. But fortunately he, like the Queen herself, is aware that people in positions of leadership have to take risks.

The idea that heads of state should at all times be kept out of danger is rank heresy. Even when they are also virtually indispensable heads of government — as de Gaulle was, for instance, during the Algerian crisis, or as King Juan Carlos has been during the transition from despotism to democracy in Spain — braving bombs and bullets is a necessary part of their job. For the past eleven years the monarchy has been admired, as always, by most people (and not only Protestants) in Ulster, 'albeit' (as the mayor of Coleraine delicately put it last Thursday) 'from some distance'. Now the Queen seems once again to be personally involved, and that is all to the good.

Mr Mason had a specific reason for setting much store by the visit. Having recently humiliated hard-line loyalists by breaking their political strike, he naturally welcomed the opportunity to inflict an even more spectacular humiliation upon the IRA, He knows that the IRA is the real enemy, and that any sign of appeasing violent rebels after crushing misguided loyalists would be fatal to his, policy.

, Combined with an encouraging record of anti-terrorist activity during the first six months of this year, the successful defiance of the IRA's threat to create havoc at Coleraine amounted to a major psychological victory — achieved, like most victories, by a mixture of luck and good management. The extent of republican discomfiture was reflected in the Irish Independent, which said of the first day of the visit that the Provos had taken the spotlight from the Queen, but of the second that their bluff had been called.

The Independent also suggested, in a leader on 12 August that the SDLP had been mistaken in deciding to boycott the visit. 'It is likely. . . that the SDLP refusal to meet the Queen will only provide ammunition for the Unionists and Loyalists when they assert that the minority is not to be trusted because its allegiance is not, as they will claim, to the British Queen but to the • South'. This is certainly true, but in fairness to Gerry Fitt one should say that he damaged himSelf in the eyes of many of his supporters by praising the RUC after the collapse of the loyalist strike, and that he was as much in need as Mr Mason, mutatis mutandis, of a compensating gesture. Nevertheless even moderate Unionists are bound to feel some misgivings about sharing. power with a party whose leader is unable to praise the security forces with impunity.

The Queen's speech at Coleraine has been compared with her grandfather's at the opening of Stormont in 1921 (a speech written, incidentally, by my father), which is described by A. J. P. Taylor as 'perhaps the greatest service performed by a British monarch in modern times'. It led to a truce between British forces and Michael Collins's IRA, and in due course to the 1921 Treaty, which might conceivably have settled the Irish Question but for the disastrous behaviour of de Valera.

The other day the Queen reassured the majority community by referring to Ulster as part of 'our country'. At the same time she gave pleasure to the minority by suggesting that in future power would have to be shared — a rather dubious gloss, admittedly, upon the statement that the people of Ulster 'must live and work together in friendship and forgiveness', but one that has been freely made by those who wish to make it.

Though members of both communities are cooperating in the local government of Derry (known in Britain as Londonderry), and of the Moyle district of north Antrim, most observers would agree that at the provincial level there is no chance of a return to power-sharing for several years to come, if ever. In their own neighbourhoods Pro

testants and Catholics can work together without prejudice to the basic constitutional issue, but in any question of devolvea government for the Province as a whole that issue inevitably arises.

Mr Mason has shown that he has no intention of trying to dictate any form of devolution, though he will respond to any initiative from the Northern Ireland parties if they can reach agreement among themselves. Meanwhile he will concentrate upon economic development and beating the terrorists. His economic measures have been on a large scale and very craftily deployed. Both in positive aid and in protection against the effects of expenditure cuts, Ulster is the most favoured part of the United Kingdom. On the eve of the loyalist strike Mr Mason announced a big new order for Harland and Wolff, which he had helped to secure, and on the eve of the Queen's visit he announced a further huge package of aid for the Province.

He must be realistic enough to understand that neither Irish republicans nor Protestant extremism will be killed by economic 'kindness'. But anyone can see that so long as, in some Ulster towns, there is up to 30 per cent male unemployment, sectarian bloody-mindedness will be aggravated rather than diminished.

During the autumn Mr Mason will be visiting a number of countries, including the United States and Japan, to try to sell Northern Ireland to more foreign investors. And several passages in the Queen's Coleraine speech were clearly designed to assist the process.

The Speaker's Conference on Ulster representation at Westminster has started its work, and the only person on it who might be tempted to obstruct the proceedings is Gerry Fitt — because the demand for more Ulster seats is associated with the idea of integration. But it will sui-e13, be hard for him to resist a change from which his own party, among others, stands to benefit, and in the absence of obstruction the Province might well become entitled to eighteen or twenty seats by next February, with only the boundaries remaining to be fixed.

Meanwhile those Unionists who are most anxious to see the change will continue to support Mr Callaghan's Government, if only because the Speaker's Conference would automatically lapse if Parliament were dissolved.

Finally, two quick points about the royal visit to Ulster. It was noteworthy that those asked to meet the Queen were not only 'nobs', but included many rankand-file workers in the various organisations and services represented. In some cases the head person did not get an invitation, while a comparatively humble member of his staff did.

Ian Paisley was not asked to the lunch at Coleraine, and one leading constituent of his — a Roman Catholic — told me that he thought this a mistake, because it seemed gratuitous discrimination when another local MP was asked.