Ruth Dudley Edwards: The truth is out - Trimble was treated appallingly over talks with Sinn Fein
As my friend David Trimble’s wife Daphne and I agreed - laughingly - when I reported to her something fantastically tactless he had said to someone I’d introduced him to, “David isn’t a people person”.
But as I got to know him slowly in late 1980s and 1990s, in addition to great intelligence, deep reading and open-mindedness, I had found him a man of rare decency, honesty and courage.
As a friend, he was intensely loyal.
But apart from being short on social skills, he had little intuition, which could be a dangerous weakness in someone in charge of a spectacularly fractious party, who had to deal with the slippery Tony Blair and defend unionism while being undermined mendaciously by the DUP leadership.
For such a mild man, Lord Empey was scathing in this newspaper this week about the recent revelations in state papers about DUP duplicity (The DUP told lies on an industrial scale about their contacts with SF, August 12).
Its top brass, he wrote, were repeatedly telling lies “on an industrial scale”, as they scented and sought power post the 2003 election, when they replaced the UUP as the biggest Northern Ireland political party.
Indeed, while they were savagely abusing David Trimble as a traitor for openly having meetings with Sinn Fein, talks with its leadership were being held secretly.
In the early 2000s, secretary of state John Reid had written to Blair about the IRA that “we cannot for much longer go on hiding the truth about what they’re really getting up to - killing, robbing, targeting, developing new weapons, racketeering”.
But, as Bertie Ahern later admitted, the Irish government deliberately turned a blind eye.
And the Blair government was equally amoral, as Trimble learned the hard way.
As were the DUP leadership.
As early as 2002, Martin McGuinness and Jeffrey Donaldson had a private channel.
Jonathan Powell, Blair’s chief of staff, briefed his boss in 2004 as part of the flattery offensive with Ian Paisley to take the line: “Any objective observer will see that you have obtained far more than David Trimble ever came near to achieving… this is not a leap in the dark but a real end to the conflict for which you will get deserved credit and respect”.
Powell attached a note dealing with the “DUP desire for a financial bung” to sweeten the deal with the IRA.
Powell is back in the news as Keir Starmer’s national security adviser.
It was he who, as the special envoy to resolve the Chagos Archipelago sovereignty dispute, came up with what seems to most observers a crazy capitulation.
“Keir Starmer walks into negotiations with a white flag at the ready”, observed Opposition leader Kemi Badenoch.
“He is giving away British territory in the Chagos Islands - and paying for the privilege.”
It is some consolation to those who witnessed how appallingly Trimble was deceived and let down to see the state papers vindicating him, as they vindicate his loyal allies like Reg Empey.
And as they reveal the lies told to this day by some members of the British and Irish governments and Sinn Fein leaders.
The UUP should be proud.
l Ruth Dudley Edwards is the author of ‘The Faithful Tribe: an intimate portrait of the loyal institutions’ and 'Aftermath: The Omagh Bombing and the Families’ Pursuit of Justice’
l Ruth’s website is www.ruthdudleyedwards.com, Twitter is @RuthDE, Facebook is Ruth Dudley Edwards