Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Sheilbh]

I can see the argument for it- that's the constitutionally conservative position. MPs have a mandate etc.

In a way it's taken longer than it should have and the trend has been towards wider party decision making in terms of the leadership. Labout expanded their leadership process to include members in the 80s and the Tories did in the 90s. It's just unusual that both parties then had long periods of opposition - then in 2007 Brown avoided having any competitors while in 2016 everyone's campaign imploded so May ascended unopposed.

The reality is that this has broadly been the way new leaders, so PMs too, are chosen for about 40 years. It's just that it was never really triggered in past 40 years for a variety of reasons. I'm not sure going back to the 70s is a solution (though it is in vogue generally right now ).

And ultimately I think it a further step in the development of party democracy in the UK (in a more European direction) of parties having more of an external substance rather than primarily being their to support/organise on behalf of the parliamentary party.

[Sheilbh]

Good obit from the Times of Lord Trimble:

Obituary

David Trimble lived in the shadow of Brian Faulkner, the last prime minister of Northern Ireland, with whom he was often compared. Faulkner rose to the position of leader of the Ulster Unionist Party in 1971 on a hardline ticket, only to be toppled by Unionist extremists when he had subsequently mellowed, and entered into power-sharing in 1974. Trimble, who attained the leadership of the Unionist party in 1995 on a similar intransigent platform stance, likewise proceeded to display a hitherto unseen liberal disposition, articulating his willingness to compromise. Thus, it was always the fear that by signing up to the 1998 Good Friday agreement, which was loathed by many Protestants, Trimble (who had ironically been part of the United Ulster Unionist Council that engineered Faulkner's downfall) would suffer the same unhappy fate.

For some time it appeared that Trimble had exorcised the ghosts of history, as for three years, in conjunction with the nationalist Social, Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), he was first minister of a Northern Ireland that enjoyed a period of peace not witnessed since the late 1960s. In the end, however, he was undone by the same man who had brought down Faulkner: the Rev Ian Paisley. If it was a cruel case of history repeating itself, it was also ironic.

In the 2005 general election, Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party overtook Trimble's Ulster Unionist Party on a platform promising no dealings with a political party that was a front for a fully armed, paramilitary organisation. But in a sudden U-turn in 2007, Paisley made the announcement that he would co-operate with Sinn Fein, a group with which he formed a government. The world looked on in bewilderment at the spectacle of Paisley, the new first minister, smiling and joking with former IRA activist, Martin McGuinness (obituary, March 21, 2017), now his deputy. It was strange: Trimble had been ousted as Unionism's figurehead on account of his willingness to deal with former gunmen, by the man who was now doing precisely this. What is more, Paisley was now in the process of implementing that which the Good Friday agreement had originally sought to put in place.

It was a bittersweet victory for Trimble; his vision had triumphed, but not the man. And while the world praised the work of the likes of Paisley, McGuinness, Gerry Adams, Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern, the role Trimble had played (and indeed that by John Hume of the SDLP) in bringing closure to the Troubles was curiously overlooked amid all the celebrations and speeches of congratulation. Trimble, however, was not resentful, but he was rightfully proud of his achievements.

"In 2005 I came a cropper but, in the seven years between 1998 and 2005, we changed the political situation in Northern Ireland irreversibly because, after that, the DUP was unable to reverse it. We changed it and we changed it for the better. They are going to operate faithfully the structures and mechanisms we put in place nine years ago. The delicious irony is that they are going to be operated faithfully by my bitter enemies. I shall enjoy that sight," he said.

The son of a civil servant, William David Trimble was born in 1944 and grew up in the seaside town of Bangor, Co Down, the heart of liberal Unionism. He was the descendent of a Northumberland family who had come to Ulster in the 1600s. At the non-denominational Bangor Grammar School Trimble soon gained a reputation as a bright and articulate young boy: on one occasion arguing with a teacher about the amount of oxygen a climber would need on Everest. He avoided games and spent time swotting at history instead.

He joined the Scouts and the ATC, though he did mix with Roman Catholic children. He did not rebel but remembers his adolescence as one marked by brooding anger, and at the age of 17, much to the consternation of his family, he joined the Orange Lodge, an organisation looked down upon by Belfast's middle-class elite. He insisted "that's where I got my politics". Instead of university he entered the civil service to secure a decent and regular wage, but on a release scheme from the Land Registry took a part-time law degree at Queen's University Belfast, attaining a first-class degree and joining the staff as a lecturer.

At the age of 20 he joined William Craig's militant Vanguard movement, standing unsuccessfully as a Vanguard Unionist Party candidate in 1973 power-sharing elections. He was elected VUP member of Merlyn Rees's ill-fated convention in 1975-76, though Vanguard split in the late 1970s after Craig began to become interested in fostering better cross-community relations within a quasi-autonomous Ulster state. He later recalled: "I remember the Vanguard leader, Bill Craig, saying to me, 'How are we going to tell our people the only way forwards is to talk to them — our people want to shoot them'." Vanguard was doomed, but the seeds had been sown in Trimble's mind. He was himself expelled from the United Ulster Unionist Council in the mid 1970s for supporting Craig's idea of a voluntary coalition with the SDLP. It was a radical gesture then, but by the 1990s parity of esteem had become the touchstone of mainstream Unionism.

Meanwhile, he divorced Heather McComb, whom he had married in 1968, in 1976. In 1978 he would marry Daphne Orr, a solicitor, who would go on to serve in the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland and the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission. She survives him along with their sons Richard and Nicholas and daughters Victoria and Sarah.

His academic career hit a low patch after terrorists attacked premises of Queen's in 1983, murdering a colleague, Edgar Graham, a promising member of the UUP. Trimble had joined the party in 1978, but it was the 1985 Anglo-Irish agreement, which gave the Irish Republic a say in the affairs of the North, which Trimble said had "galvanised" him into playing a more prominent role in Northern Irish politics.

His rise through the echelons of Unionism was a lightning one. Only seven years later, after the death of Harold McCusker, Trimble was elected MP for Upper Bann, one of the most staunchly Unionist constituencies in Northern Ireland. He quickly gained a reputation as one of the most irascible and reactionary of Unionists, most famously parading hand in hand with Paisley at the first stand-off at Drumcree in 1995. He was also noted for his lack of social skills, once storming out of a meeting with ministers, leaving fellow Unionist Ken Maginnis to apologise.

When the aged James Molyneaux announced his retirement as leader of the party in 1995, Trimble initially announced that he would not stand — it looked as though "moderates" John Taylor and Maginnis would battle it out. However, under pressure from constituents, not to mention articles in The Daily Telegraph and The Times heralding his talents and promise, Trimble announced his decision to stand as the youngest, and the most hardline, of five candidates. His eventual defeat of Taylor in the third ballot was greeted with both surprise and apprehension by the media, who believed Unionists had elected a Paisley without the clerical collar.

He was not to be a Paisley. Nicknamed "the computer" for his renowned powers of factual retention, Trimble was far too politically astute to employ ranting rhetoric, nor become a William Craig, content in his solemn forebodings of imminent peril. During his time as backbencher he had displayed an ability to portray Unionism as the victims, not the victors. Contrary to those in the Republic who had earmarked Trimble to be Unionism's FW de Klerk — the man who would deliver his people from generations of discrimination into a new era of co-operation and power sharing — Trimble insisted "I would much rather be the Mandela ... de Klerk was the leader of a minority group that was frustrating the democratic rights of the majority. In Northern Ireland there is a minority group frustrating the rights of the majority and it's called Sinn Fein. Mandela got 70 percent of the vote — Gerry Adams isn't going to get that." The comparisons did not stop there. During the Gulf war of 1991 he compared the Irish Republic's claim to Northern Ireland with Saddam Hussein's claim on Kuwait and in 1995, making an allusion to Bosnia, he even quipped: "Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams are the Karadzic and Mladic of Northern Ireland."

Of all the comparisons heaped on Trimble, one of the most pointed, but perhaps apt, was that he was a Richard Nixon: a man so sure of his right-wing powerbase and integrity as to make peace with China, or in this case, Irish Republicanism. Yet Trimble was ready, be it reluctantly, to engage in dialogue with the other side. Rumour of his plans to scupper any kind of peace agreement in Northern Ireland proved far from accurate when in 1997 he became the first Unionist leader in Northern Ireland in 76 years to confront Sinn Fein across a table in the peace talks. Nevertheless he refused to address its leader Gerry Adams face to face, maintaining that Adams was the front for a terrorist organisation that had refused to surrender its weapons. Yet in 1996 Trimble had met senior Progressive Unionist Party figures at the Belfast City Hall, a party that represented the outlawed Ulster Volunteer Force and with even less democratic mandate than Sinn Fein.

Trimble, a red-faced, carrot-haired caricature of the dour and serious-minded Ulsterman, was aware that in terms of appearance and presentation he had a disadvantage, compared with his slicker adversaries. ("I have a problem looking more angry than I am ... and this florid complexion doesn't help", he once reflected.) He contrasted starkly with Adams, a man groomed to look more statesman-like and well versed in media doublespeak, though Trimble was honest and self-depreciating on the matter. "I know I should have been giving people more of my vision for the future, but I'm not very good at the evangelical bit. Blair is good, and Clinton's good, but I'm a bit flat, I'm not exciting, I know it ... But at least I don't try to bullshit people".

The peace process under the aegis of Blair and secretary of state for Northern Ireland, Mo Mowlam (obituary, August 19, 2005), who Trimble hid his dislike for very thinly, was a contentious period. The main bone of contention for Unionists was the question of Sinn Fein involvement in talks when the IRA had not decommissioned their weapons, and at periods, when it was not even on a ceasefire.

Nevertheless he led the Unionist camp which championed the Good Friday agreement of 1998, and in doing so incurred the wrath of those Protestants unwilling to back a deal which they believed was giving succour to terrorism. In his hardcore constituency in Portadown he was labelled "Judas" and challenged when touring the town on his campaign trail. By the end of the decade he was a figure loathed as much by hardcore Loyalists as he was Republicans.

His appearance with John Hume, the SDLP leader, on stage at the "Yes" U2 concert at the Waterfront Hall in Belfast, was perhaps the gesture that consolidated his image of the hardliner made good. The unionist community was split down the middle by the election, though as a whole, the people of Ulster backed it by a ratio of two to one. He celebrated the Good Friday agreement by going for a quiet family meal in a fish restaurant.

Despite his party's poor showing at the 1998 Northern Ireland election, Trimble was elected first minister of Northern Ireland on July 1, 1998 with Seamus Mallon as his deputy. That was also the year he won the Nobel peace prize, along with Hume (obituary, August 4, 2020).

He and Mallon seemed a comfortable pairing, showing signs of being men ready to tackle Ulster's poisonous sectarian legacy, not least when Trimble himself called for Orangemen to back down during Drumcree IV after the murder of three young boys in Ballymoney. Indeed as part of his modernising initiative he was for much time trying to loosen links between the Unionist Party and the Orange Order. This was a different Trimble to the one who had danced a jig with Paisley at Drumcree I.

Trimble's tenure as first minister was always going to be hindered by two factors: the IRA's refusal to decommission its weapons, and by a large minority of Protestants — represented by the DUP, and by some in his own party, such as Jeffrey Donaldson — who did not endorse the agreement. Within a year, with Republicans boasting "not an ounce, not a bullet", and with unconditional prisoner release, this minority had become a majority.

In February 2000, Westminster briefly suspended the Assembly to prevent a hardline Unionist coup, but power-sharing finally collapsed in 2002 after the discovery of an IRA spy ring at Stormont. In the 2003 Assembly elections the DUP overtook the UUP as the largest Unionist party (as did Sinn Fein oust the SDLP as foremost nationalist party). Two years later in the general election, and following a bank raid in Belfast, in which the IRA was thought to have stolen £25 million, Protestant patience with the agreement had finally evaporated. In 1995, when Trimble had become leader of the party, the UUP had ten seats at Westminster; in 2005, this was reduced to one. Trimble himself lost his seat and duly resigned. He was ennobled in 2006 and the following year joined the Conservative Party.

The irony was that in 2007, Paisley had a unexpected damascene conversion, and decided that the time was right to work with the one-time men of violence. Sinn Fein, having given its full support to the Police Service of Northern Ireland (which had replaced the Royal Ulster Constabulary in 2001), likewise felt it could work with its former foes.

As Trimble observed in May that year: "Republicans, who never wanted Stormont in the first place, will join with the DUP, who never wanted to share it with anyone, let alone them, because at the end of the day, the DUP had nowhere else to go and could not retain their electoral support if they did nothing. Some explanations remain outstanding, but candour is not likely." Many believed the explanation was quite prosaic: the enormous amount of money that Westminster promised to pour into Northern Ireland if it were to maintain a functioning Assembly.

Trimble was at heart a lawyer and a scholar, with a love of high culture. After the U2 concert he conceded that his musical tastes were more that of Wagner, though he was known to be an Elvis fan. In private he was not quite the caricature of the dour Ulsterman — the writer Ruth Dudley Edwards once described him as "fun" and "charming".

He knew the perils that his choice of career had entailed, and in October 1997 army experts had to defuse a parcel bomb sent to his offices in Lurgan, Co Armagh. Having spent his holidays in Yugoslavia in the mid 1980s, he was given an insight into the dangers of giving tribalism a free rein. From this and other factors did the realisation that compromise was essential come to David Trimble.

Lord Trimble, first minister of Northern Ireland 1998-2002, leader of the Ulster Unionist Party 1995-2005, and 1998 Nobel peace prizewinner, was born on October 15, 1944. He died after a short illness on July 25, 2022, aged 77

[Tonitrus]

I suppose Boris could start a new party and run in the next election with that? 

[Sheilbh]

I suppose Boris could start a new party and run in the next election with that? 

He could, but he won't

There are rumours that Corbyn is going to change his Peace and Justice Project into a party though.

[Josquius]

I suppose Boris could start a new party and run in the next election with that? 

He could, but he won't

There are rumours that Corbyn is going to change his Peace and Justice Project into a party though.

No doubt some people on the tory payroll egging him on for it.


As to the voting for an PM part. One bit that particularly irks me is we should be moving towards democracy and coalitions as standard.
In this future I am voting for the ultra niche Northern social democrat party with their 10% of the national vote and handful of MPs with zero expectation of their leader being PM. However their MPs could certainly potentially get a say in who the PM is.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah it goes to the whole questions of what democracy's for and how different systems can deliver/support that.

Personally I really like the Scottish Parliament's system.

Although the North has less than 10% of the national population so that niche party is doing really well

Edit: Incidentally on the debat - good Guardian highlights clip here:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jul/26/rishi-sunak-tory-leadership-debate-aggressive-style-mansplaining

[HVC]

Repercussions for leaving the EU? Why I never!

Brits freaking out that they have to prove they have money and return ticket to enter Spain.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11049249/British-tourists-able-prove-spend-85-day-enter-Spain.html

I know Daily Mail is a cluster, but I like reading for a laugh

[Tamas]

Repercussions for leaving the EU? Why I never!

Brits freaking out that they have to prove they have money and return ticket to enter Spain.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11049249/British-tourists-able-prove-spend-85-day-enter-Spain.html

I know Daily Mail is a cluster, but I like reading for a laugh

 

See I am telling you, a lot of Brits just took it for granted that they can go wherever the heck they please because they are Brits and the EU had nothing to do with that. And most of them aren't really arrogant or mean about this - it's just the natural order of things.

[Richard Hakluyt]

Yeah it goes to the whole questions of what democracy's for and how different systems can deliver/support that.

Personally I really like the Scottish Parliament's system.

Although the North has less than 10% of the national population so that niche party is doing really well

Edit: Incidentally on the debat - good Guardian highlights clip here:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jul/26/rishi-sunak-tory-leadership-debate-aggressive-style-mansplaining

I suppose it depends on our definition of the "North". I use the NUTS1 regions and the North consists of three of these; the North-East, the North-West and Yorkshire and the Humber. These have a combined population of 15m and just over 22% of the UK population

So, Jos is about right on the northern social democrat numbers I reckon 

[Sheilbh]

I just feel like Yorkshire is in the North, but if there's space for niche regionalist parties, there's no way Yorkshire's sharing

[Richard Hakluyt]

They have nearly the same population as Scotland, so 50 or so grumpy Yorkshire MPs would make a nice parliamentary bloc 

We are sure about wanting PR here    ?

[Sheilbh]

Yorkshire MPs as permanent kingmakers in our PR parliament, willing to back whoever will commit to the most pork-barrel spending for Yorkshire and the reunification with the bits separated to form Humberside

[Jacob]

They have nearly the same population as Scotland, so 50 or so grumpy Yorkshire MPs would make a nice parliamentary bloc 

We are sure about wanting PR here    ?

I guess the question is whether PR will lead to regionalist parties, or whether it will lead to more choice of flavours... One Nation Tories in one party, Free Market Absolutists in another, "we're not Fasicsts, we just like many of their talking points" Right Wingers in another and so on, with a similar splintering on Labour's side.

Personally - and probably unsurprisingly - I think the Danish model (which is more along the lines of the second model) works pretty well.

But of course, it's one thing to have the mechanics of a given system and another for the political culture to follow along.

[Sheilbh]

I guess the question is whether PR will lead to regionalist parties, or whether it will lead to more choice of flavours... One Nation Tories in one party, Free Market Absolutists in another, "we're not Fasicsts, we just like many of their talking points" Right Wingers in another and so on, with a similar splintering on Labour's side.

Personally - and probably unsurprisingly - I think the Danish model (which is more along the lines of the second model) works pretty well.

But of course, it's one thing to have the mechanics of a given system and another for the political culture to follow along.

Yeah there are multiple models to PR and they have different benefits and drawbacks, plus some that are slightly more inherent (same with FPTP).

I think the political culture point is really important too. Our system is at the extreme on lots of models of democracy and what democracy is for/how it should work (I think probably the polar opposite of our system is the European Parliament - which may have been part of the issue :lol). Moving from that to a different political culture is more than just a mechanical change - I think you can see that in Scotland and (to a lesser extent) Wales where you have different systems but the culture is still quite similar.

[Sheilbh]

Slightly mad - no idea what happens and hope everyone's okay but it looks like there was some sort of accident in the studio at the latest debate:
https://twitter.com/harryjohnrutter/status/1551984214001831936?s=20&t=E5fqk5M2nPLoauNK89_kVg

Truss looks pretty shocked by whatever happened.

Edit: Apparently the station has said everyone's okay and it was a medical issue not security. Still not sure what happened.