Belfast Agreement at 25: David Kerr - Unionism needs to better understand what was achieved by Good Friday Agreement

Twenty-five years later, there are some things that need put on the record.

1) The Good Friday Agreement was a good deal for unionism

The Good Friday Agreement, constitutionally, was a good deal for unionism. We were never going to get majority rule back after 1972 and to make Northern Ireland work properly, for it to endure for generations, it needed to be a place where nationalists felt at home and part of the civic and political infrastructure.

The agreement cemented into law the principle of consent – that the majority here would forever hold the right to determine our constitutional future. For the first time ever, Irish nationalism, republicanism and the IRA were accepting the legitimate right of Northern Ireland to exist and remain within the UK.

The North-South structures between NI and ROI, were painstakingly negotiated by the UUP talks team on the Wednesday night of that final week of the talks. This led to the creation of largely inconsequential North South bodies, which were of no threat whatsoever to the constitutional status of Northern Ireland. Crucially, unionism had a veto over all key decisions.

David Trimble’s team had banished the ghosts of Sunningdale in 1974 and in doing so, achieved unionism’s top objective. It’s my view all those present in the UUP talks team were broadly content with this outcome.

To counter-balance the North-South arrangements, the UUP secured agreement on the creation of the British Irish Council, to give a forum for cooperation between all the various governments and administrations of these islands. This was another landmark achievement for unionism, that to this day is still under-utilised and undervalued.

The agreement secured the removal of the Irish government’s illegal territorial claim over Northern Ireland (Articles 2 & 3 of their constitution). This caused significant problems within Fianna Fail and Sinn Fein, which no-one ever talks about.

And, above all of these things, the agreement provided for the establishment of a power-sharing executive at Stormont, returning accountable power to locally elected people, giving a centre of gravity to politics in Northern Ireland – something that is vital for the success of political unionism.

These were the strategic, long-term objectives for unionism in the talks and they were secured. David Trimble genuinely believed that if unionism could make these institutions work for everyone, with full participation by all parties, Northern Ireland’s place within the UK would be secure. It was now up to unionism to shape and take control of its own future.

2) The UK and Irish governments were weak on prisoners and decommissioning

The UUP had argued in the talks that if prisoner releases were going to be part of an overall settlement, they should take place over five years and be linked to decommissioning. Sinn Fein wanted IRA prisoners out in 12 months and convinced the loyalists to agree a joint position of releases in two years, with no explicit parallel requirement for decommissioning.

The UUP pleaded with the UK and Irish governments to show backbone on the issue, but the governments sided with the paramilitary groups’ demands. David Trimble was stuck.

Under the voting rules of the talks, he needed the support of the loyalist PUP and UDP to ratify an overall agreement on Good Friday. If he couldn’t get them to support him, he felt all the constitutional gains would be lost.

Tony Blair’s Good Friday letter to David Trimble, offering assurances of support for decommissioning would prove worthless, as Blair put David under relentless pressure in 1999 to form an executive without a start to IRA decommissioning. Could Blair and Ahern have done more to force the paramilitaries to disarm and disband between 1998-2000? Absolutely.

The main reason we eventually secured IRA decommissioning in autumn 2001 was the 9/11 attacks in the USA. Irish America declared ‘terrorism’ a dirty word and the guns had to go.

3) The number of prisoners released early under the Good Friday Agreement

When Ken Maginnis asked for details of how many prisoners would avail of early release under the agreement, he received a handwritten letter from Tony Blair’s chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, on Good Friday 1998. The letter indicated that there were 340 prisoners belonging to PIRA, UVF and UFF at that time.

Out of these 340, under existing sentencing legislation, Powell said 269 would be free by April 2000 anyway. In total, he indicated at that moment, 71 prisoners would benefit from early release under the Good Friday Agreement. The hand-written letter outlining this, is now part of the official records of that period and is retained by Queen’s University.

4) 90%+ of Patten’s Policing reform came from the RUC itself

Over 90% of the reforms brought forward by Chris Patten and his Policing Commission on the RUC, were already in draft form in 1998, having been produced by the RUC top brass themselves. The name change, from the RUC to PSNI, was not an RUC recommendation, but was viewed by the commission and SDLP as essential to create a new beginning to policing.

Whether you agree with it or not, the sign-off for the name change was ultimately made by the UK government. It was not supported by any of the unionist parties.

5) Sinn Fein did not vote ‘Yes’ on Good Friday 1998

The UUP never met Sinn Fein in a bilateral meeting during the entire talks process leading up the Good Friday Agreement. The negotiations on Strands 1, 2 and 3 were mainly between the UUP, SDLP and the two governments – although the UUP refused to speak to the Irish government about Strand 1 (internal affairs of Northern Ireland) issues.

Sinn Fein took virtually nothing to do with Strand 1 talks as they were opposed to returning to Stormont. They had no interest in Strand 3 (East-West structures) and seemed to leave almost all of the details of the Strand 2 talks to the Irish government and SDLP.

Sinn Fein’s primary focus was on prisoner releases and avoiding any explicit requirement for the IRA to disarm. Right until the end, they were just inside the tent and no more.

They were successful on prisoners and decommissioning language, but their overall difficulty with the constitutional aspects of the agreement, was the reason they were the only party on Good Friday to refuse to say ‘Yes’.

However, they needn’t have worried about selling the consent principle, returning to Stormont, insignificant North-South bodies etc to their sceptical supporters, as the hysterical attacks from anti-agreement unionists on David Trimble would sell the Good Friday Agreement to republicans for them.

6) Why did the UUP not sell the agreement more?

As director of communications for the UUP in 1998 and then as David Trimble’s special advisor in Stormont, I had to make complex decisions about what we said and when we said it. I’m often asked, why did the UUP not sell the constitutional aspects of the agreement more in 1998? Well, there are two reasons.

The first is that anti-agreement unionists didn’t want to talk about the constitutional wins for unionism in the deal. They simply wanted to abuse David Trimble about prisoners, decommissioning and policing, all the time. The media clearly enjoyed this grotesque unionist in-fighting and were quite happy to give substantial airtime to Trimble’s opponents.

The second reason is more important. We took the view post Good Friday 1998, that we had won the constitutional argument – that unionism had prevailed, despite 30 years of terrorism waged against it. From a communications perspective, my view was that if we had secured our political objectives, we now needed to secure military and security objectives. Our priority was therefore, to secure the disarmament of the IRA and the loyalist groups.

Following the Omagh bombing in 1998, it was obvious there were major problems within the IRA. It would serve unionism no strategic advantage to destabilise Sinn Fein, by constantly reminding republicans of what they had just signed up to.

It was in our interests to do everything possible to create the most favourable conditions possible, to encourage the IRA to disarm and disband. This is why there was never a ‘Well done Gerry’, from David Trimble. The UUP wanted Sinn Fein to move into fully democratic and peaceful politics.

If we could achieve a political agreement, paramilitary disarmament and disbandment, Northern Ireland’s future would be assured as a peaceful, normal society.

7) The St Andrews Agreement empowered Sinn Fein more than the GFA

Some unionists say the Good Friday Agreement (GFA) empowered Sinn Fein and helped make them the party they have become. This is incorrect for two reasons.

Firstly, everyone wants republicans to be peaceful and political. If that’s an outworking of 1998, that was the plan. If a lot of people vote for them, that’s democracy!

Secondly, the change negotiated by the DUP and Sinn Fein at St Andrews, to the voting mechanism to elect a first minister and deputy first minister, is the real reason why both of these parties are so large today.

That rule change allowed both the DUP and Sinn Fein to basically blackmail their respective electorates into voting for them, in the sham fight for the supposed top post of first minister, which everyone knows is a co-equal and joint position anyway.

8) Twenty-five years later, what are the lessons for unionism today?

Unionists have learned a lot of hard lessons from the past 50 years. Having lost control of Stormont in 1972, unionism couldn’t find a viable political and power-sharing model, adopting a defensive mentality, while expecting the UK government to take the lead in providing solutions.

This gave us the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement and many other joint UK and Irish government initiatives, which were frowned upon by unionists.

The lesson of those 25 years from 1973 to 1998, is that if unionism doesn’t take the lead in finding solutions, the UK and Irish government will usually come up with proposals that unionists don’t like.

It’s one of the great ironies in 2023, that some of the fiercest critics of the Good Friday Agreement, now need it for protection, as the outworking of Brexit causes more damage to unionism than anything the IRA ever did.

The Good Friday Agreement remains the best institutional foundation for the future of Northern Ireland within the UK. It needs reformed to provide for a cross-community, voluntary coalition model, but unionism needs to fully embrace the agreement and leverage every part of it, for political advantage.

Those who peddle the myth that the Good Friday Agreement can be torn up and replaced with some new unionist utopia, are the same people who thought Boris Johnson would give Northern Ireland the same Brexit as Finchley.

Whatever unionism does next to find a way out of the post-Brexit quagmire, the one consistent lesson remains – if unionism wants a better deal, it has to go looking for it.

The unionism of the 1980s, sitting back with arms folded, waiting for the UK government to continually offer new ideas and sweeties, is a dangerous form of political self-harm.

Unionism needs to be strategic. It needs to think medium and long-term. It needs to find and promote solutions that will make Northern Ireland more prosperous and politically stable.

If it gets that formula right, the Union will be secure and David Trimble’s 1998 dream of raising up a new Northern Ireland, will eventually become a reality.