In Defence of Edward Heath

One story has dominated the news this week, the almighty cock up made by recent governments over the handling of records belonging to immigrants to Britain during the late 20th century. Named after the infamous ship that carried one of the first major groups of immigrants to post-war Britain, the Empire Windrush, the legal position around the Windrush generation is simple- when they arrived in the United Kingdom, they were citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies, and had the right to move to the United Kingdom, live and work here. Britain was affectionately known as 'the Mother Country,' and thousands of people all around the world looked up to us, and chose to move and help us in our times of hardship after the Second World War. So leave it to the UK to manage to get into a tangle about whether or not now, some 65 plus years later, the people who moved here should be allowed to stay.

Today also marks a linked, particularly repulsive anniversary, 50 years since Enoch Powell, former youngest professor in the British Empire, former youngest Brigadier in the British army, and now a senior Conservative politician, rose to his feet in Birmingham's Midland Hotel, and gave a speech. His speech was a broadside against the Labour government's Race Relations Bill then working its way through the Commons. Powell cited examples of terrified white constituents in Wolverhampton, isolated in their schools and on their streets. To continue with immigration at this level, Powell argued, was proof we were "mad, literally mad, as a nation." "It is like watching a nation, busily engaged in heaping up its own funeral pyre." Although his final line was delivered in Latin, it was a chilling image which gave the speech the name by which it is known: "I am filled with much foreboding. Like the Roman, I see the Tiber foaming with much blood."

The impact of the Rivers of Blood speech was immediate and dramatic. Thousands of London dockers, Labour supporters to the core, marched on Parliament, chanting Powell's name and offering him support. Telegrams and letters poured into politicians and newspapers across Britain, the vast majority of them in support of the views Powell had expressed. In years to come, the phrase 'Enoch was right' was adopted by the far-right, and it was effective. Clearly, there was a powerful groundswell of support for Powell's ideas. When he backed the Conservatives in 1970, and Labour in 1974, support in opinion polls and at the ballot box noticeably shifted.

This post is in defence of a man I wrote my undergraduate thesis about. Edward Heath was the leader of the Conservative party from 1965-1975, and Prime Minister from 1970-1974. History has not been kind to him. He was a pretty poor leader of the Conservative party, and his election win in 1970 was a total shock to everyone apart from himself. He was not easy to get on with, and inspired loathing amongst his many critics. In office, he presided over economic turbulence, with widespread strikes, pay and price freezes, and the drastic imposition of the Three Day Week in 1974, arguably the nadir of post-war British history. Heath also struggled to deal with the total collapse of order in Northern Ireland, with sectarian carnage and the horrific events of Bloody Sunday. Even his one definitive achievement, taking Britain into the European Economic Community, now lies in tatters. When Heath lost his third of four elections in late 1974, his detractors were circling. To finish him off, they persuaded his Education minister to challenge him for the leadership of the Conservatives, even though she was a fairly dreadful candidate herself. But she did better than anyone expected, and so Heath was ousted by a Mrs Margaret Thatcher. And so the world turned.

And yet, Heath deserves credit for two actions , one linked to Powell, one linked to a handling of immigration from the Commonwealth.

When Heath heard what Powell had said in April 1968, he acted instantly. Even though it was fast becoming apparent that Powell's position was immensely popular, Heath moved fast. Before the weekend was over, he had sacked Powell from the front bench of the Conservative party, by phone. The two men never spoke again.

This sent a powerful message to all those itching to follow in Powell's footsteps. Overt racism was a death knell for your career. Powell never held senior office again, eventually leaving the Conservative party, joining the Ulster Unionists, before being ousted from Parliament in 1987. Sacking Powell didn't stop racism in Britain. It didn't even stop racialist coding in British public life. And the ugly genie of racism seems to have been more fully let out of the bottle in recent years. But Heath did draw a line in the sand; overt, crude racism had no place in mainstream British politics.

Heath's other action to be praised for puts this, and indeed most subsequent, governments to shame. In 1972, Uganda's despotic and unhinged leader, Idi Amin, suddenly announced that the substantial Indian population of Uganda had 90 days to leave. Uganda was already a country wracked by violence, and this was seen as a removal of protection for the Ugandan Asians. The Ugandan Asian community numbered around 60,000 people, and it had originated in the days of the British control of Uganda, when they had been forcibly moved there by British colonial administrators. Amin was looking to expropriate the wealth of the Ugandan Asians to enrich himself and his supporters. As Uganda had been a part of the British Empire, most of these Ugandan Asians held British passports, much like the Windrush migrants.

In 1967, a similar situation had arisen in Kenya. In response, the Labour government of Harold Wilson had retroactively changed the law governing citizenship, effectively stripping the Kenyan Asians of their British passports and preventing them from fleeing to the UK. And Heath's government had tightened immigration controls only the year before. Many Conservative backbenchers were off the opinion that Britain had no obligation to these people, and shouldn't take them in, no matter how dire their predicament.

However, after failing to reason with Amin, Heath's government ignored the critics, and the precedent set by Labour in 1967, and agreed to take all those Ugandan Asians who were citizens of the UK and Colonies. Some 30,000 people upped and moved to the UK. Heath persisted with this policy in the face of ferocious opposition, much of it in the name of Powell and his message. It was a courageous policy, and one governments since should look on with a certain amount of shame that they have never made such a bold move to help those in need.

So, on this 50th anniversary of the Rivers of Blood speech, and as the government currently makes an absolute hash out of the issue of whether people who moved here when they were British citizens should be allowed to stay, it is worth remembering the example of Edward Heath. Racialism is beyond the pale. And Britain should help out those in need.

The Hand of History

The deadline was midnight at Friday 10th April, 1998. It came and went. The news crews huddled outside had nothing to report. Inside, the meetings carried on through the night. Exhausted delegates made push after push after push to reach a deal. But many did not believe they would achieve anything, and waiting in the wings were the naysayers, and the men in balaclavas itching to return to violence.

It really is hard to recreate the mindset of the Troubles. The war waged by the IRA against the RUC, the army, and the intelligence services, and the deaths and injuries amongst innocent bystanders that stemmed from this attempt to drive Britain from Norther Ireland, was bad enough. But even worse are the nakedly sectarian murders carried out by both republican and loyalist paramilitaries, in which people were killed simply because of who they were, or who others believed them to be.

By 1998, this cycle of horror had continued for just over thirty years. The descent of the province into anarchy from the mid-60s onwards had cost the lives of around 3500 people by 1998. Nearly 50,000 had received life changing injuries. Hundreds of thousands were left with deep psychological scars.  Miscarriages of justice occurred, with innocent people imprisoned as killers continued to roam the streets. The British and Irish police and intelligence services buckled under the pressure of keeping the peace, with elements within both police forces aiding those who were breaking the law and taking innocent lives. The political failure to even come close to solving the problem was absolute. Those elected to represent the people of Northern Ireland were barely able to share a room with those they saw as their eternal opponents.

The years were littered with failed initiatives to try and bring an end to the carnage. The Stormont parliament had failed to reform itself quickly enough, and so had been abolished. The Sunningdale Agreement, a ray of false power sharing sunshine from the early 1970s, had been brought down by a Unionist general strike. The assembly of the 1980s had been a non starter. For many, 1988 seemed to be the pit of despair. Three IRA members were shot dead by the SAS in Gibraltar. At their funerals, a loyalist gunman opened fire on the mourners. At their funerals, two British soldiers were dragged from their cars, beaten and shot. Even the act of burying the dead was now an opportunity to wreak sectarian havoc. A picture of a Catholic priest kneeling over the soldiers, administering the last rites, was beamed around the world, epitomising the abyss into which Northern Ireland had sunk.

But in the pocket of Father Alec Reid was a letter, now soaked in the blood of the dying. It was from Gerry Adams, the leader of Sinn Fein, the political wing of the IRA. At the time, Adams was seen as so dangerous, so vile, that his voice was not allowed to even be heard by the British people, to deprive him of the "oxygen of publicity," as Margaret Thatcher put it. The letter was being sent to John Hume, the leader of the nationalist political party, the SDLP, and a long time advocate for peaceful change in Northern Ireland. Two less likely allies couldn't be imagined. But, thanks to the work of Father Alec Reid, the two men were corresponding. The letter set out the position of Sinn Fein for an end to the 'armed struggle,' and asked the SDLP leader for his take on them.

From this letter flowed everything else that follows, commonly called the peace process. It was complex, painful, and littered with false starts. The tale of how that letter leads to Stormont on Good Friday of 1998 is too long, too confusing to be told here. The IRA and loyalist paramilitaries went on and off ceasefire. Governments in both Britain and Ireland came and went. Talks started, stopped, restarted, and stalled. 

Even as 1998 dawned, the prospects for a deal seemed slim. Both Sinn Fein and the loyalist political parties were suspended from the talks after the IRA and UDA continued to murder. The reluctance of the loyalist paramilitaries to enter talks was only overcome when Mo Mowlam, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, went into the notorious Maze prison to negotiate directly with the imprisoned leadership of the paramilitaries.

Which brings us to that hectic round of talks in 1998. The US senator chairing the talks, George Mitchell, set a deadline of midnight on Friday 10th April for a resolution. At half past midnight on Tuesday 7th, Mitchell presented what he thought was the final draft. The unionists rejected it. This triggered an unprecedented flurry of activity. Both Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern, the British and Irish prime ministers, dropped everything that they were doing and headed to Belfast, throwing themselves into the talks. Blair managed to break a promise in the same sentence he made it, vowing no soundbites before launching into one.

In Washington, Bill Clinton was on and off the phone non-stop. Round the clock meant round the clock- some of the most senior politicians in Britain and Ireland slept on their office floors for two days. At one stage, a row broke out over whether Ulster Scots was a Celtic language. Only quick intervention stopped that derailing the deal.

Finally, 17 and a half hours late, Mitchell announced a deal was struck. The principle of consent was enshrined, whereby Northern Ireland would remain a part of the UK, as long as most people who live there want it to; on the flip side, it was recognised that it was perfectly legitimate to want a United Ireland. Citizenship of both the UK and the Republic of Ireland was made available to everyone in Northern Ireland. Cultural differences were to be respected and tolerated. A Northern Irish Assembly was to be created, with power shared across the nationalist and unionist communities. A framework of institutions was made across the Irish border, and between Britain and Ireland. The police were to be reformed, and the army would eventually withdraw. The border was to be fully reopened. Prisoners who had committed terrorist crimes were to be released. Crucially, the 'men of violence' were to hand over their weapons, and commit themselves to peaceful means.

At the time, it was obvious that something momentous had been achieved, and the delight of the politicians, and many people in Ireland, was evident. The deal was put to a referendum, both north and south of the border. A copy of the agreement was sent to every household in Northern Ireland, to give everyone the chance to scrutinise the deal. In the Republic, 94% of people voted in favour. In Northern Ireland, 71% backed the deal, on an incredibly high turnout of 81%. In recognition of their roles in securing this remarkable deal, John Hume and David Trimble (the leader of the largest unionist party) were awarded the 1998 Nobel Peace Prize (seen here with Bono, who did not win the prize).

It has not all been plain sailing since. Many in the unionist community were deeply suspicious of the deal, and felt they were giving up part of their British identity, while the nationalists and republicans were being given a blank cheque. Ian Paisley's hardline DUP refused to sign the deal, and campaigned against it. The Ulster Unionist Party split, and was wiped out in the process. On the republican side, many in the IRA were unable to abandon the dream of a United Ireland. The IRA split, with the Real IRA continuing to wage war, most notably in the Omaha bombing of August 1998, the single worst incident of the Troubles. For those who remained committed to a peaceful solution, the arguments over policing, symbols, and giving up weapons nearly derailed the agreement many times. It took until 2007 for a lasting power sharing arrangement to be formed, headed by the unlikely partners of the more hardline Sinn Fein and the DUP. A year ago, deep lingering mistrust pulled the rug from under the Northern Ireland Executive, and it remains suspended. The Brexit vote has thrown the future of the cross-border arrangements into serious doubt.

And yet, for all the difficulties, and a serious lack of reconciliation between the two sides, the Good Friday Agreement marks the moment when the guns stopped. Since 1998, around 150 people have been killed in terrorist related violence in Northern Ireland. That is 150 too many, but a massive improvement on the c.3500 killed before 1998. A serious campaign continues to be waged by dissident republicans, loyalist groups have turned to violent crime, and there are rumours that the Provisional IRA continues to exist somewhere in the shadows. But for the vast majority of people in Northern Ireland, a return to the sectarian carnage that blighted the late 60s, 70s, 80s and early 90s is virtually unthinkable. An entire generation has now grown up and become adults with no memories, no experience of what the Troubles was like. It will take time, possibly generations, and there are many challenges on the road ahead. It won't be easy, and will require a lot of hard work, not just from Northern Irish leaders, but from Britain and Ireland too. But peace is a process. On that April day in 1998, it got a massive push to get the ball rolling. Maybe Tony Blair was right about that hand of history after all.