Eleven up to heaven
Rawle Knox
LondonderrY "Unionists May Hold Whip Hand," declared Belfast's News Letter, the morning after the count — not balance, mind you, whip hand: Westminster has been warned. News Letter also underlined: "421,782 voted against San' ningdale." You will understand what the election in Northern Ireland was all about.
It was never going to be about anything else. Afterwards William Craig, one of the successful UUUC candidates, having outlined something of the new deal he wanted for Ulster, seemed rather surprised to be asked, whether he and his colleagues were prepareu to work to get Britain out of her econotnic mess, but he recovered enough to remember he was a Loyalist, and made the right noises. It's a long time since I've seen anyone in Ireland look as happy as did Ian Paisley 0r1, the evening of the count. When Gerry Fit' telesuggested that the other elected members of the UUUC might resent being PaisleY'S puppets, the doctor chortled. When Brian Faulkner tried to expound the Sunningdale agreement as salvation, only the restraints' doubtless; of the cloth Paisley had donned for the occasion, held in an explosion of sardonic laughter. It had of course been a roaring vic. tory. Lone SDLP winner Gerry Fitt ("the dirtiesdt campaign I've ever been involved in — anA none of that due to me — but it's finishey with the cleanest result") is the only Northern, Irishman who will at Westminster wear 't Sunningdale hat, and he has pledged suPP°re for Harold Wilson. His Unionist allies in tr',,!i, Stormont Executive, Faulkner's men, had,;„,ig effect admitted defeat in advance by fielu'V only seven candidates in the twelve cons`e tuencies. Defeat had to be foreseen becau,st, the supporters of both Faulkner and fit_ while they've heard a lot about "power-sh3'd ing," have by no means come to regdr
themselves as partners. Nowhere could this be More clearly seen than in North Belfast, a Constituency now represented by a bearer of the emotive name of Carson, who gathered some 21,500 votes. Against him the SDLP man and the Unofficial Unionist (pro-Faulkner;
since Faulkner lost the leadership of the official Unionist Party) each attracted over 12,000. Yet it would have been useless to enter one or other of them alone as a champion of Sunningdale, for nary a Catholic would have
voted for the Unionist nor Protestant for the SDLP.
Brian Faulkner has been saying, and I have tended to go with him, that the public could not be expected to vote again on matters it was unable to judge because they remained !natters of the future. William Craig grinds it out differently; the new vote is an indication ' that people have made up their minds about the packages offered by F,aulkner, by Dublin Twelve by London, and have turned them down. twelve of Faulkner's seventeen supporters in the Assembly come from those four Belfast constituencies, Where no Faulknerite came Within a distant sniff of victory and even Gerry Fitt only got home against UUUC's , McQuade by some 2,000 votes. There may be 11-1, Lich in what Craig says. The Prod bogeymen nave done their job well. Far better for them trhat no Council of Ireland yet exists, that uublin has not yet been able to pronounce definitively (to Paisley's satisfaction, anyway) the status of Northern Ireland, that the 'Aecutive has not yet begun to execute; all ,could be lumped together in a nebulous norror-land to which the British government Would have Ulster consigned. The damage has been done, and Paisley is in aPostolic mood. "Providentially," he tells us, the eleven UUUC MPs find themselves in a position to "exert proper pressure on whatever government comes into power at West, 1Nnster." Watching the election pundits on London TV one realised that, suddenly faced ‘Ilith the importance of Paisley's eleven, they .iidn't know what to expect. (Unprompted rends excluded Patrick Cosgrave from this iscription.) Were they to welcome wee elfin 1e from the bog or bulls ready to wreck the estminster china shop? 'Maverick' was a Word I heard mentioned. Heather Thatcher ;eckoned Northern Ireland lived a political life , Van, and she didn't seem to want to have i,111.,°ch to do with it. Richard Rose hilariously Z,ovised lobby correspondents to learn a :orthern Irish accent, and Robin Day twitched Ieninly at Paisley and asked him if he were hvrePared to behave himself in the Mother of trak rliaments. Paisley, of Course, was ready for 'et one. Where there was real democracy he Zould behave as a real democrat. For London e Put on that delightful pulpit face of his. The UUUC has told its customers i.nequivocally that its men are going over to ondon to get Sunningdale scrapped. They ‘1‘;:nt Stormont and the RUC as they used to hh, and power-sharing only "by consent." i:men told that such a programme is opposed every major British political party, and ''at they are but eleven:they are unabashed. h_raig growls that the Constitution Act of 1973 Perrnits the present administration only if the a.lority of the people wish it (back to those ulgures again): "the British cannot impose inclemocratic rule." What is more the people, 'e. the very considerable numbers who sup Ilprt UUUC, are "restless, impatient." If the !itish are stupid enough to ignore this 9,nease "they are inviting the people of Ireland ._":1 take action on the ground." Paisley is, as ;vet% more diplomatic. "We only ask: Let us to the country. Any British government welcome the support of people who ask ti:th a simple question." That is very neat, tr'.eause it is not so simple. All the really thickY questions would mile later. Already. mere is widespread belief among both com ti Unities in the North that UUUC would inially support a British government that
promised sterner security measures for Ulster. It is a proposition that must make sense to many in Britain who are sick of seeing the killings continue, but in fact it means more pressure on certain Catholic areas and an indefinite continuation of internment, which Gerry Fitt and his SDLP would end. It is a proposition designed, in fact, like that of a new election in the North, to drive a wedge between Faulkner's Unionists and the SDLP — or, in the closer refinery of the Unionist crucible, to eliminate Faulkner and all Who have supported him. We shall see what the whip hand can do. I, for one, would not like to see the end of the first official collaboration between Prostestants and Catholics that Northern Ireland has seen within the longest lifetime.
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