FORMER BRITISH prime minister Tony Blair was prepared to rush cutting British troop numbers in Northern Ireland and reduce electronic Border surveillance in 2000 to spur IRA decommissioning, Lord Mandelson has claimed.
In his memoir, The Third Man: Life at the Heart of New Labour, the former Northern Ireland secretary of state said Mr Blair and his chief-of-staff, Jonathan Powell, wanted to offer concessions to keep Sinn Féin "on board and to encourage them to speed up decommissioning".
“We differed on whether it was right or responsible, to play the ‘normalisation card’ without clear evidence that it was merited by the behaviour of the IRA, or the threat posed by its splinter groups,” he writes, adding that security chiefs shared his fears.
Mr Blair, he said, “understood” his concerns about security: “He was anxious to find some way – at times, it appeared, any way – to avoid another collapse in the talks and another interruption of devolved rule.”
Lord Mandelson, who served as secretary of state from October 1999 until January 2001, said the Irish government had “clearly shared” Sinn Féin’s view that he would not “make good on his threat” to restore direct rule unless there was progress on IRA decommissioning.
On February 10th, the day the suspension was to come into effect, then-Taoiseach Bertie Ahern faxed a “draft IRA statement” agreed with Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams to No 10 Downing Street: “We were told that it was to be read only by Tony [Blair] and me.”
The wording was “a step forward” in Sinn Féin’s position since it committed the IRA to “putting its arsenal finally and completely beyond use. But it was frustratingly vague on how, and utterly silent on when”, said Lord Mandelson.
Ulster Unionist leader, David Trimble acknowledged that the statement helped “but he said it was too little and too late” and Mr Trimble rejected Lord Mandelson’s appeal to delay his resignation as First Minister by a fortnight.
Despite “enormous pressure” from Mr Ahern and US president, Bill Clinton, Lord Mandelson suspended devolved government later that evening with the agreement of Mr Blair, who accepted that there was no alternative.
“The immediate effect was a campaign by Sinn Féin and Irish government ministers – some of it in public, some through whispering and briefing – accusing me of having acted precipitately and irresponsibly in folding up the devolved institutions.
“In a phone call between Tony and Bertie Ahern that evening, Bertie had passed the phone to his cabinet secretary, Paddy Teahon, who let rip at me in furious personal terms, calling me every name under the sun, not realising that the Number 10 switchboard had silently patched me in to the call,” Lord Mandelson writes.
The Sinn Féin leader, he said, had “made a point of warning me before the attacks began. ‘Don’t take it personally,’ he said, ‘but you’re going to become public enemy No 1.’ I did my best to heed his advice, but it was hard.”
He said he later offered Mr Adams a compromise that would link IRA decommissioning not just to the devolved institutions, but to the overall implementation of the Good Friday Agreement.