Joint Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement debate -
Thursday, 30 Jun 2022

Architects of the Good Friday Agreement (Resumed): Mr. Jonathan Powell

Chairman

Apologies have been received from Deputy Carroll McNeill and Mr. John Finucane MP. Today is our third meeting with the architects of the Good Friday Agreement project whereby the committee meets with a range of the people involved in the negotiations, both politicians and officials. On behalf of the committee I give a very warm welcome to Mr. Jonathan Powell who is joining us remotely. Mr. Powell was chief of staff to the Prime Minister, Tony Blair from 1997 to 2007 and was the chief British Government negotiator on Northern Ireland during that period. Mr. Powell is very welcome. I regularly read his columns in The Guardian and elsewhere. He has a fantastic CV and he will give us the benefit of his wisdom today.

Before we begin, I wish to explain some limitations to parliamentary privilege and the practises of the House. The evidence of witnesses physically present or who give evidence from within the parliamentary precincts is protected pursuant to both the Constitution and statute by absolute privilege. However, witnesses and participants who are to give evidence from a location outside the parliamentary precincts are asked to note that they may not benefit from the same level of immunity from legal proceedings as a witness giving evidence from within the parliamentary precincts. Such witnesses may consider it appropriate to take legal advice on that matter. Witnesses are also asked to note that only evidence connected with the subject matter of proceedings should be given and should respect directions given by the Chair and the parliamentary practice to the effect that, where possible, they should not criticise or make charges against any person, persons or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable, or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity.

Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the Houses or an official either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable. I remind members of the constitutional requirement that members must be physically present within the confines of Leinster House to participate in public meetings.

I call on Mr. Powell to make his opening statement.

Mr. Jonathan Powell

I thank the Chair and the committee for inviting me to this session. I am sorry that I cannot be there in person. The Good Friday Agreement is something that I feel very strongly about. I devoted a good part of my life to the process relating to it. I have been involved in many negotiations in my life, but this particularly one was the most important for me and the one that I think has achieved the greatest benefit for all.

The Good Friday Agreement and the subsequent St. Andrews Agreement have been remarkably successful in bringing a lasting peace to Northern Ireland. They have not solved all Northern Ireland’s problems from sectarianism to repeated political crises but they have so far prevented a return to the misery of the Troubles.

What the agreements did was to take the poison out of the issue of identity and allow us to return to normal politics where parties wrestled with the practical day-to-day problems like health and education. We must remember that in the end the Good Friday Agreement was an agreement to disagree. Unionists still wanted to remain in the UK and nationalists and republicans still wanted to be part of a united Ireland. We did not solve that problem but both sides accepted the principle of consent if the status quo was to change, and that meant they could pursue their different aims politically, and purely politically and peacefully, rather than by violence. It also meant that people in Northern Ireland could feel Irish, British or both.

This happy compromise has been upended by the impact of Brexit. As was pointed out at the time of the referendum, the UK leaving the Single Market and customs union would require a border somewhere. The Brexiteers pretended there was some magical answer where there could be a border through technology or some other means but if that were the case there would be no need for borders anywhere in the world. It was never a credible solution to the problem. The then Prime Minister, Theresa May, struggled, I think honourably, to try to find a solution with a Heath-Robinson type scheme involving the whole UK remaining in the customs union. Boris Johnson instead opted for a border in the Irish Sea, something Theresa May had said no British PM could agree to. This option is certainly massively better than a border on the island of Ireland, which would be disastrous for the Good Friday Agreement and the peace process but we must recognise that it does raise issues for unionists about their identity. It does put a border between them and the rest of the UK. Unfortunately for the unionists, there are only these two choices. In six years of trying, no one has been able to suggest an alternative. Therefore, we will have work with the protocol and the border in the Irish Sea.

The current British Government has embarked on a policy of escalation by threatening to unilaterally abrogate the Northern Ireland protocol which they themselves negotiated and signed. As a result, they have broken international law and undermined the UK’s international reputation, alienated our allies in north America and Europe at a moment when we need them most and have potentially triggered a trade war when the world economy is struggling with a cost of living crisis. The main casualty will be the Northern Ireland peace process itself. That does not mean we are inevitably destined to return to the Troubles but rather that it creates a permanent political crisis where we cannot get the institutions up and running again and Northern Ireland is left without a viable Government for the foreseeable future.

The solution seems perfectly obvious. The British Government should be negotiating and trying to de-dramatize the issue, rebuild trust with the EU and find solutions to the undoubted practical problems that exist as a result of the protocol. This will require the EU to be flexible, and I think that they have been flexible, but they must be even more flexible around implementation. It also requires the UK to drop ideological demands such as those around the European Court of Justice.

From my experience of negotiating in Northern Ireland and around the world, negotiations only work if there is trust between the two sides. I fear what the current British Government has done is to destroy that trust. That will make it very difficult indeed to get negotiations going again. In fact, I find it hard to imagine how that will happen with the current Prime Minister in office. I fear we may have to wait until he has departed before we have serious negotiations. I hope I am wrong, because I do not want this political crisis to be prolonged. That is my current view.

I will stop there. I again thank the Chair for inviting me to speak to the committee.

Chairman

It is rare indeed that relations were ever as good as they were when Mr. Blair was in government. It was from there that the peace process developed. I want to acknowledge that we need somebody in the United Kingdom who has the same depth of knowledge and understanding as that Government and other Prime Ministers, such as John Major, had. I concur with Mr. Powell that the situation has never been as bad between Britain and Ireland. One of the core elements of the Good Friday Agreement was the assembly, as well as North-South bodies which are not meeting. It is a complete breakdown and a permanent crisis, and in that context there is no communication. Nobody is talking to anybody else. A drift is never good in such cases.

There will be 15 minutes per speaker. I will let members know when there is a minute left in order to be fair to everybody. Speakers will go in order of political party so that everybody gets the same time, regardless of the strength in whatever parliament he or she is in.. The order will be Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, Sinn Féin, SDLP, Alliance and the Green Party, followed by Sinn Féin MPs, the Labour Party, Independents, Aontú and Senator Frances Black.

Senator Niall Blaney

Mr. Powell is very welcome to the committee and we are delighted he could join us to discuss the important piece of work we are doing at the committee in trying to establish as many facts as possible regarding the coming together of the Good Friday Agreement. Before I even go there, we could spend a day talking to him about what is going on with the Northern Ireland protocol. He outlined the situation with the current British administration and the breakdown in relations. We in Ireland find this to be an extraordinary time.

Mr. Powell was involved at a time when relations were at their strongest over the past 100 years. It is pertinent that he brings that up, but I want to talk about the protocol. Businesses in Northern Ireland are feeling the strain because trade on a North-South and east-west basis has never been better, and reality is that the Northern Ireland economy has never been better. The fear is that there is an effort to pull Northern Ireland back in line with the UK economy because Northern Ireland is so successful. It has become a good example of alignment with the EU. If Northern Ireland is compared with the rest of the UK, it is a good example of one region that is doing well. Look at the economy in areas controlled by those who caused Brexit. It is a case of one versus the other. The people in the North are very fearful that the British Government will damage the economy. It is a worrying time.

As I said, the Good Friday Agreement was a fantastic achievement by everyone involved, including the UK and Irish Governments, all of the parties in Northern Ireland and the American Administration. Many background meetings took place. We need to acknowledge what it took to, for once in our lifetime, get people to come to the table, speak openly, honestly and with respect for each other and get an agreement done. We need to remember the work involved in the lead in to the agreement and how long the negotiations went on for.

How did we get a UK Prime Minister who was so keen to work with an Irish Prime Minister? The relationship between Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern was key. How did that come about? Tony Blair took a keen interest in the agreement and was very positive about trying to make it happen. He worked closely with all involved. Could Mr. Powell give us some background information on that?

Mr. Jonathan Powell

I again thank the committee for inviting me to speak. The lead up to the Good Friday Agreement is a good place to start. It is important to view it in a larger context. It was not as if the Good Friday Agreement appeared from nowhere. It was built on previous attempts at negotiation, in particular the Anglo-Irish Agreement. Although it, Sunningdale and, in the end, the Downing Street Declaration failed, the Good Friday Agreement built upon all three. We see that in Colombia and elsewhere. Agreements are not magicked out of thin air; they build on a series of attempts to get to peace. The crucial point about the Good Friday Agreement negotiations was making them inclusive.

The negotiations succeeded where others had failed primarily because of the good relations between the Irish and British Governments and the way they worked together closely. That was absolutely fundamental. John Major worked very closely with his opposite number. However, I remember being on the fringes of what was happening at the British embassy in Washington. I knew the people doing the negotiations on the British side pretty well. There was still a certain frisson of suspicion between the British and Irish Governments at that stage and slightly different interests.

One of the questions the Senator asked is why Tony Blair was interested in Northern Ireland at all. There are precisely no votes relating to Northern Ireland in British politics. One would not do it in order to win political success. When he became leader of the Opposition in 1994, Tony Blair changed the policy of the Labour Party from being a persuader for unity into supporting John Major in his efforts to reach peace. He felt that it was crucial for all of our islands, should be above politics and have an approach of bipartisanship.

Tony Blair supported John Major even when he thought some of the things John Major did were wrong. He deliberately thought it was important for the two parties to stay together. His interest came in part from his time spent as a child in Donegal with an Orange grandmother with whom he used to stay. However, it was more than that. It was about a commitment to making peace and he invested a great deal of his political capital in trying to make that peace. The first visit he made out of London after being elected in 1997 was to Balmoral outside Belfast to make a speech to reassure unionists that the Labour Party was not a threat to them, but rather determined to try to get to an inclusive peace.

Tony Blair established a good relationship with Bertie Ahern from very early on. The fact that both men were able to stay in office for so long was crucial. In the history of Northern Ireland, British Prime Ministers came and went. Tony Blair was someone who was determined to make a difference in Northern Ireland - he stayed in office for a long time - in partnership with his Irish opposite number. It was crucial that Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern were prepared to take risks for peace. They could have been criticised on both sides or things could have gone horribly wrong. Even setting a deadline for the Good Friday Agreement by saying it would be done by Easter of the next year was a big risk. Civil servants spent a lot of time trying to persuade Tony Blair to change his mind on that and not to crash it but rather extend the deadline. He insisted on sticking to it. The risk taking on both sides was crucially important. Once Tony Blair got his teeth into trying to solve the Northern Ireland problem, he was very reluctant to give it up. He is a very persistent person and he wanted to get to a solution.

In his autobiography Tony Blair says that I said that he solved Northern Ireland because he had a messiah complex. In fact, it was not that. It was Mo Mowlam, who had a very colourful turn of phrase, who told me that Tony Blair thought he was "effing Jesus", which is not quite the same thing as a messiah complex but is closely related. He actually believed Northern Ireland could be resolved and he believed he could contribute to that. That belief and commitment were crucial.

I have probably been a little long-winded and I apologise.

Deputy Brendan Smith

I thank Mr. Powell. Like the previous speakers, I compliment him on the work he did with Mr. Blair as his chief of staff and chief negotiator, on his commitment to the advancement of peace on this island and on his continued interest and the good and impartial commentary he gives through the media at different times.

As a person who worked at a senior official level with the British Government as a diplomat and then as Mr. Blair's chief of staff, his comments today on the foreign policy pursued by Mr. Johnson's Government are fairly stark, to say the least. He used a few phrases that I totally agree with from my limited knowledge of British foreign policy. He spoke about the unilateral action and how damaging it is. He said the British Government is proposing to break international law, is undermining its country's international reputation and is alienating North American and European allies, with the possibility of potentially triggering a trade war. He then outlined the difficulties that are created for the political institutions here as a result of the policies being pursued by that Government. That is quite a stark message to an Irish parliamentary committee from a former senior diplomat and a person who worked at the highest level in politics in Britain. I welcome his clear message and the clarity he delivers in that message.

It is worrying for us. As has been said by my colleagues, relations between Ireland and Britain are now at a very low level. For those of us who were in politics during that era, the one message that came across was the need for trust, and that is among the last words Mr. Powell used in his initial contribution. There was obviously great trust between John Major and Albert Reynolds and subsequently between Mr. Blair and Bertie Ahern. We listened to some of the Irish diplomats who were involved in negotiations at the time as well and the message I got was that one will not make progress unless there is trust between the Heads of Government. I presume that permeates down to official level. If there is no trust at political level between Heads of Government and the respective Ministers of the different Administrations, the official system will be poisoned as well in regard to the lack of trust between officials working on both sides of the Irish Sea. Bearing that in mind, would Mr. Powell put great emphasis on the progress having been made because of trust between the Governments at the time at official level, political level and particularly at Heads of Government level?

By and large, the unionist parties have trusted successive Conservative governments. With Mr. Powell's experience, does he think they will continue to have trust in Mr. Johnson since many of the commitments that have been made have not yet been honoured? Today, sadly, this country and, indeed, our islands suffer because the political institutions that were established under the Good Friday Agreement, which were endorsed in referenda North and South, are not operational and fully functional on behalf of the people. The will of the people is not being implemented in Northern Ireland due to the institutions not being in place.

Again, I sincerely Mr. Powell for his contribution in the past and for his ongoing commentary as well.

Mr. Jonathan Powell

I thank the Deputy. He put his finger on the crucial issue, which is trust. Just as we spent a decade building trust, the current Government is spending its time destroying trust, which is catastrophic. I deeply regret the state of bilateral relations, which is terrible and totally unnecessary. The only comfort I take is that I believe they can be restored very quickly. It is ad hominem rather than about the countries concerned. I believe any new British Government, whatever the party, would do its best to rebuild relations because they are so important and rebuild that trust. I hope I am right in saying that.

Regarding trust and the Good Friday Agreement, it is the crucial point in a way. It is true that John Major built a very good relationship with Albert Reynolds and there was a good deal of trust between senior officials on both sides. However, as I said, there was still a little frisson. I remember some British officials talking about how green Irish officials were and the like. Interestingly, once it moved to the Blair Government, as Mr. Blair says and I think he is right, there was a new generation. Both he and Bertie Ahern did not quite have the burden of history that someone from a previous generation, such as Mrs. Thatcher, would have had on Irish questions. For them there was a much more open mind and they saw the need to get to peace, to get Northern Ireland politics working properly and to remove the poison of identity from it. First, building that trust with Bertie Ahern was crucial because Tony Blair was able to work seamlessly with him. Mr. Ahern did not think we were trying to pull something over on him at any stage. We were not, and vice versa. I built my relations with Paddy Teahon in the Taoiseach's office and later with Michael Collins. Of course, it was at every level of government. As the Deputy said, once there are good relations between the principals it is much easier to have good relations all the way down the official chain.

It was also important that we were running this Northern Ireland thing from 10 Downing Street. Sometimes we were criticised for that, but it was a symbol of how important getting to peace in Northern Ireland was to Tony Blair. He wanted it to take up a good deal of time for himself, his chief of staff and 10 Downing Street. One of the problems we have now is that 10 Downing Street has largely backed out of Irish questions, except when it comes to being destructive with the protocol. That is a mistake. It is important for 10 Downing Street to stay involved.

Beyond that, it was then important for trust to be built with the parties. Mo Mowlam, who I pay tribute to, played a very important role in building trust with nationalists, in particular, after the election. She was very different from her predecessors, who were good men but very much in the mould of Guards officers rather than more normal representatives of the British public. She managed to break a lot of ice in opinions in Northern Ireland. I always think of Mo Mowlam as a necessary but not sufficient cause of peace. If we had not had her, it would have been very difficult to build that trust.

It was also important to build trust on the unionist side. Tony Blair devoted a lot of time, as did I, to trying to build a relationship of trust with the unionists. He spent a great deal of time talking to political leaders. There is an investment in building trust. In fact, an anecdote about later on in the negotiations illustrates it. It was when we were trying to get the DUP into a peace agreement after it won the elections in Northern Ireland. We were in Leeds Castle and the whole thing fell apart when we were trying to get the Good Friday Agreement implemented, before we got to the St. Andrews Agreement. I remember Tony Blair and I going up to one of the bedrooms and sitting on a four-poster bed with Peter Robinson and asking how we were going to do this. He said that we had to build trust with Ian Paisley. He said we needed to talk to him, and not just about politics but about religion and other things. Tony Blair then devoted hundreds of hours to sitting with Ian Paisley and talking about faith and matters relating to religion rather than politics. That played an important part in building trust with Rev. Paisley so we were able eventually to get to the St. Andrews Agreement.

The Deputy is right to say that trust was central to what happened then. The destruction of trust, to be honest, is the tragedy of what is happening now.

Chairman

I will move on and if Mr. Powell is still with us we will have a second round. I call Senator Currie.

Senator Emer Currie

It is nice to meet Mr. Powell virtually. I thank him for his contribution to the Good Friday Agreement. We in the committee very much want to find our way back to the principles of the Good Friday Agreement regarding consensus and compromise. I follow Mr. Powell on Twitter and he had an interesting thread a couple of weeks ago about the principle of consensus and community consent.

Mr. Powell might elaborate on that point.

He referred to the current Prime Minister in his contribution. Does he think we will only find our way back to those principles when Boris Johnson is not there? Does he think somebody in the Tory Party is going to replace him and take the same approach? We have seen an attack on the fundamental principles of the Good Friday Agreement through the Northern Ireland protocol. Northern Ireland did not vote for Brexit. It supported the protocol in the elections but that is not being respected. There is talk about consent but despite every single party on this island being against the legacy proposals, they are being introduced. The UK Government is talking about respect for the Good Friday Agreement and, at the same time, undermining the European Convention on Human Rights. Perhaps Mr. Powell would reflect on that and the future of the union. I have another question but I will allow Mr. Powell to respond to those questions.

Mr. Jonathan Powell

What was the Senator's last point in respect of the future of the union?

Senator Emer Currie

I mean that in the context of what is happening in respect of Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Mr. Jonathan Powell

I should preface my contribution by saying I am not a lawyer or an expert. However, it appears that what is happening is an attempt to try to redefine consent and the idea of cross-community consensus and cross-community agreement. It is dangerous to try to bleed these things so they mean something other than they meant in the Good Friday Agreement. Changing the meaning of terms could undermine the whole basis of the agreement. What is required by the Good Friday Agreement is consent to change the status of Northern Ireland. That is not cross-community consent; it is consent of the majority. According to opinion polls, there is no majority to change the status of Northern Ireland now. I do not know when that majority might ever exist but it does not exist now. It does not require a majority of both communities; it requires a majority of the population.

As I understand the protocol, change also requires the consent of a majority in the Northern Ireland Assembly, not a cross-community majority. That is trying to shift this issue to take a cross-community angle. As I say, I am not an expert and I may be misstating the situation but this is my understanding. To play with the words involved, as the current UK Government is doing, is dangerous. The cross-community aspect has always been important and was a crucial element of the Good Friday Agreement. What we needed after 90-odd years of Protestant-dominated Northern Ireland was to find a way where there could be proper power-sharing. We could not accept one community lording it over the other the entire time. There had to be an ability for both communities to have a share. Interestingly, that was then to protect the Catholic minority in Northern Ireland, and if it is now used to protect a Protestant and unionist minority, which may be the case when we see the next census and which has happened politically, we should respect it equally. Starting to monkey around with those terms and how they are applied is dangerous, even if one is only doing it rhetorically, as the British Government has been doing.

There is a longer-term question that will need to be discussed, in that power-sharing may not be the right answer for Northern Ireland indefinitely. Power-sharing in Bosnia, for example, has been destructive in the long term because there can be no political change. It would be dangerous to start changing power-sharing at this stage in Northern Ireland's existence, given the sensitivity involved. The Alliance Party has some very good points on that issue and ways need to be found to accommodate them. However, I do not think it would be wise to undermine the Good Friday Agreement in respect of consent and cross-community agreement at this stage when everything is being stirred up by Brexit and the introduction of the protocol.

That is not a very satisfactory answer. I worry when the current British Prime Minister is taking these terms and trying to adapt them to what he wants politically rather than accepting what was actually stated in the agreement.

Senator Emer Currie

Would that position continue even if Boris Johnson were not at the helm?

Mr. Jonathan Powell

The truth of what is happening on the protocol, unfortunately, is that it has a lot to do with the Conservative Party and very little to do with Northern Ireland. It is about the leadership of the Conservative Party. For Boris Johnson, shoring up his position in the Conservative Party requires him to pander to the Brexit radicals in the European Research Group, ERG. That is what he is doing. Liz Truss, unfortunately, is now in charge of this negotiation. She is also pandering to the same people in the hope of getting their votes to succeed Boris Johnson. However, if there is a leadership election in the Conservative Party and a new Prime Minister, even if it were to be Liz Truss, I would be very surprised if the British Government carries on the same theme of pandering to the ERG in the same way. Any responsible Prime Minister would immediately try to rebuild trust, restart negotiations and not risk making things worse in Northern Ireland by reopening issues of consent and cross-community agreement. That is my hope and my belief but I may, of course, be wrong.

The Senator also asked about the union, which requires a long answer. I will try to give a brief answer on that. I think people fail to fully comprehend how the constitutional futures of Scotland and Northern Ireland impact on each other. We tend to look at them in isolation whereas, in fact, they will interact with each other. If a Conservative Government tells the Scottish people it will not agree to a referendum but it then agrees to a border poll in Northern Ireland, for example, those approaches will be incompatible. If the circumstances for a border poll were met and the British Government rejected it, that would not be complying with the basis of the Good Friday Agreement.

The opinion polls when Boris Johnson ran for leader were interesting. They showed that a majority of those who voted for him in the Conservative Party leadership contest, amounting to approximately 100,000 voters, were clearly prepared to lose Scotland and Northern Ireland if they could get Brexit. That is mindset of the people who got Boris Johnson the job of Prime Minister. For those people, the future of the union is not that important compared with Brexit. That is an important political marker, if you like, for what might happen to the union in the future.

Senator Emer Currie

Mr. Powell has been vocal about the need to reach out to loyalists and for them to engage in political solutions and not to go down the paramilitary route. He was involved with the launch of the Loyalist Communities Council. How does he feel about that now? Does he regret it? What does he think about the recent hoax bomb in Belfast at the Pat and John Hume event attended by the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Coveney?

Mr. Jonathan Powell

I believed it was important in government to reach out to the loyalists. Mo Mowlam was particularly successful at doing that. The committee will remember her visit to the Maze Prison at a crucial moment in the Good Friday Agreement process. I met the brigadiers of the Ulster Defence Association, UDA, when I was in government to see if I could move them in the direction of politics rather than crime. I thought the idea of the loyalist council was good because leaving the loyalists behind and ignoring them is not an answer. Issues of crime must be dealt with but there is serious deprivation in loyalist areas. There is a figure, which I believe to be true, that some loyalist enclaves in Belfast have the lowest educational attainment rates in Europe. That is worrying. Turning our backs on loyalists, or just using them as cannon fodder, if you like, as some politicians do, is a big mistake for the stability of the future of Northern Ireland. It is important to offer a political way forward for loyalism. The crime needs to be dealt with hard and properly by the police. I know that is difficult but the police need to find a way to do it, and are beginning to do so.

We have to have the political route for them to find a way out. That has not been entirely successful. I have not actually seen the council for some years now. I still think it is important to try to do that. Politicians of all parties and the British Government should all try to reach out to loyalism and encourage them down that route. The loss of David Ervine was tragic. He provided the kind of political leadership that could have really taken us somewhere. Without him, there needs to be some political leadership.

In terms of the bomb hoax threat, I thought that was appalling and absolutely terrible. This is the risk if we do not find a political route forward for loyalism. They are going to go and do completely daft, illegal and horrible things like that. That actually reinforces me in my belief that we need to find a way. That may not be the right vehicle or the right way but just to turn our backs on it would be a big mistake.

Chairman

I have a quick question for Mr. Powell. Our committee members have been in America recently. We met with Chuck Schumer and a number of Senators, Congressmen and senior officials in the State Department. We discussed the issues on the protocol, the American attitude to relationships between Britain and Ireland North and South, and the geopolitical issue with the Ukraine war. George Mitchell played a key role in getting us to the Good Friday Agreement. Would Mr. Powell have a view as to how important America's influence might be if it were to appoint an envoy who was seen to be an honest broker in the relationships? If they got the right person, would that make sense to Mr. Powell? We have to find a way which is not available to us as a committee right now, to meet and negotiate with unionists on a formal or official basis. They will not meet with us. The Americans said it is being considered at the highest level within the State Department. Would Mr. Powell care to express a view on that?

Mr. Jonathan Powell

The Chairman is absolutely right about the crucial role of the United States. I read a short history ages ago of the US role on the Irish question. It goes way back into the 19th century in politics and was certainly quite active at the time of Woodrow Wilson. It is not new. The positive role played by Bill and Hilary Clinton and by George Mitchell was really quite extraordinary and played a major part in the success of the Good Friday Agreement negotiations and implementation. Subsequent envoys also played more or less important roles depending on what was going on. Richard Haass played an important role when he was the envoy. I am slightly in two minds about whether an envoy now would be helpful. It would only be helpful if it was acceptable to both sides. In the case of George Mitchell, leaving aside his saintly patience in being prepared to sit down for so long and take a lot of grief, and his commitment to doing it, he was trusted by both sides. He really was. That was enormously important. If an envoy is going to be useful, he or she will have to be able to win the trust of both sides in Northern Ireland. It is only worth doing in those circumstances.

Deputy Pauline Tully

I am pleased to meet Mr. Powell, albeit virtually. He states the Good Friday Agreement and subsequent agreements were remarkably successful. I think we can all agree with that. They brought peace to this island. They ended a 30-year conflict and, as Mr. Powell says, they allowed political parties to concentrate on the day-to-day issues that affect people living in the North. However, Brexit has undermined the Good Friday Agreement and everything that was achieved by it and by subsequent agreements. We have to acknowledge as well that there are still elements of those agreements that have not been implemented, thus the necessity for this committee.

In recent months and particularly recent weeks, however, I am seeing the undermining of everything the Good Friday Agreement stands for. It is being undermined by a small minority of people who live on this island - the DUP - and by the actions of the British Government. The British Government is about to breach an international agreement as it pursues its legislation in Westminster on the protocol. We think it is going totally the wrong way around trying to resolve the issues. We have no institutions in the North. The assembly is not meeting and there is no sign of that happening any time soon. The North-South Ministerial Council has not met in possibly a year. Everything the Good Friday Agreement and subsequent agreements achieved is being totally undermined.

Besides replacing the British Prime Minister, which is outside our control, as someone who negotiated the Good Friday Agreement and has lots of experience in negotiating agreements between different nations, has Mr. Powell any advice or, if he does not think advice is prudent, some insights he could share with the committee? Our remit is to see the full implementation of the Good Friday Agreement. What can be done to address the current undermining of the agreement and pursue the elements that have not been implemented? Has Mr. Powell anything the Taoiseach and the Irish Government should be doing around this issue? I think they have been sort of meek in saying it is an issue between the British Government and the European Union. While I know it is an agreement between them, I think the Irish Government could be more vocal on this. It is affecting so many of our citizens.

Again, as someone who was involved in negotiating and drawing up the Good Friday Agreement, Mr. Powell has detailed knowledge of the British Government's intent regarding the criteria needed for a border poll. What are those criteria? Are they based on a census, election results or polls? It is something we need to be at least discussing and, we hope, preparing for. It is going to happen in the next few years. We need to be prepared and not go into it like they went into the Brexit referendum in Britain.

Mr. Jonathan Powell

I thank the Deputy. I think I would distinguish between the DUP and the British Government in all of this. The DUP is not the first or the only party to bring down the institutions since the Good Friday Agreement. They have been brought down a number of times by different parties for different reasons. I think it is tragic that they have brought them down. It is incredibly important to get them up again as fast as possible. Most people who have worked on the issue of Northern Ireland in Britain agree that is something that must be done.

I have noticed the British Government has different demands from the DUP. As I understand it, the DUP position is that it wants the Sainsbury's test to be met, that is, fairly practical issues to be addressed, and they are not so bothered about the European Court of Justice and ideological issues which the British Government has raised and which have very little to do with people in Northern Ireland. The danger and difficulty here is that this has all been played into Conservative Party politics, which is not in the best interests of Northern Ireland. Personally, I think it is important the DUP and all the parties in Northern Ireland are in dialogue with the EU about this. The EU should really be taking into account the interests of all of the parties in Northern Ireland about how the protocol works, its advantages, which many businesses fear will be threatened by what is happening, as well as the DUP's concerns, which are largely to do with identity but also the Sainsbury's test. I would distinguish between the DUP and the British Government on this.

I know it sounds rather hopeless to say we should wait for a new Prime Minister, but since I am hoping and believing that is going to happen quite soon, what I would be doing if I was in the Irish Government is preparing for negotiations post-Boris Johnson. If he stays, we are going to have a real problem. I just do not see how an EU negotiator can trust the Government that has done these things against the law. It is just really difficult to see how they can. For the Irish Government, too, it is extremely complicated. I am afraid I do not have a magic answer as to what we can do as long as Boris Johnson stays in power, apart from pray, which is not necessarily a political solution.

On the border poll and what the requirements were, it is a long time ago and I cannot claim to have a very good memory of this but I do not think the actual terms were ever discussed in much detail. I do not believe there is some secret drawer in the British Government where it is written down on paper what the Secretary of State will have to see before he calls a border poll. I do not think that exists. I do not know. I cannot be sure. I have been out of government since 2007. Certainly in 2007 there was not some drawer one would open in case of a census showing a majority or plurality of nationalists rather than unionists. I do think the Deputy is right is saying that preparing is important. What worries me most of all, in a way, combined with the mayhem caused by Brexit, is the sort of oath of omerta that everyone seems to have taken on the issue of what unification would mean.

The trouble with Brexit was that we saw it as being something very soft, like the situation with Norway, but it turned out to be something completely different. If one wants the more than 1 million people in Northern Ireland not to be scared about what a united Ireland might be like, there needs to be a discussion about how minority rights can be protected and the role of Stormont. I understand why the Irish and British Governments do not want to talk about it. In the end, that is a mistake. When one does not talk about things, they become scarier. I do not think a majority for a border poll is imminent, but refusing to talk about the issue is almost certainly a mistake.

Ms Michelle Gildernew

I welcome Mr. Powell to the committee. It is good to see him again. I commend him on his continuing interest in the peace process and the political situation in Ireland. He concluded with and laboured heavily on the issue of inclusion during his contribution. In the all-party talks, how critical was the inclusion of Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness to securing the Good Friday Agreement? What is Mr. Powell's view on that?

Mr. Powell mentioned meeting the brigadiers. I know he has done much work to try to bring loyalists along. Is he surprised at the Loyalist Communities Council's reaction to the protocol? What advice would he offer it with regard to the Good Friday Agreement and the protocol? Brexit certainly seemed to us to be completely incompatible with the Good Friday Agreement and the protocol is doing its best to mitigate against the worst ravages of that. This is the only forum on the island of Ireland that includes every political party. So far, unionist politicians have not agreed to be at this committee meeting. We would like that to change and have tried to include them. We hope they are listening to it. What would Mr. Powell's advice to loyalists be, especially in light of the recent attack by the UVF on the Houben Centre? I thank Mr. Powell.

Mr. Jonathan Powell

It is good to see Ms Gildernew again. It brings back memories. Inclusion was absolutely crucial. The Sunningdale Agreement did not work because of lack of inclusion. The Anglo-Irish Agreement did not work for the same reason. The fundamental change we made was to have inclusive talks. John Major always tried to move to that but was not able to do so. As I work on negotiations around the world, that is perhaps the single most important lesson I take away from Northern Ireland. If one tries to have a process that is not inclusive of those people who have political support, one is unlikely to solve the problem, because, in the end, there is usually a political problem at the root, whether it is in Colombia or anywhere else, such as the Basque country. Inclusion was fundamental.

John Major found himself in a difficult position of trying to bring Sinn Féin in. That delay made people give up hope and tragically pushed us back into violence again. That is why Tony Blair took a risk by moving as fast as he conceivably could to bring Sinn Féin in under the Mitchell Principles. That was the key to success. That did not suddenly make things easy, which is never the way in Northern Ireland. The unionists would not even talk to Sinn Féin during the talks, even in the gents' toilets, which led to all the jokes about it. It went on for a long time. Even when it came to negotiations with the DUP, it would not meet directly, or at least not publicly, with Sinn Féin and there had to be much shuttling backwards and forwards. The lesson about inclusion is important not only for Northern Ireland but for everywhere else in the world too. I hope people learn it.

Some people say that there is no problem and ask why people are making a fuss. I do not think that is right. Clearly, if there is a border in the Irish Sea, that is a problem for their identity. There is a border between them and the rest of the United Kingdom. Pretending that is not a problem will make things worse rather than better. The difficulty is, as Ms Gildernew says, that Brexit, the Good Friday Agreement and the status of Northern Ireland were always insoluble. I spent much time pointing it out during the referendum and subsequent to it. There has to be a border somewhere. We spent six years trying to think of an alternative and no one has come up with one. There has to be a border in the Irish Sea because it cannot be on the island of Ireland. Even the unionists are not proposing that it should be on the island of Ireland because they know how dangerous that would be. They are just saying that we should not have a border, which is nonsense, because there has to be a border. The question is whether we can settle this by removing the practical problems, which the protocol attempts to do.

I think the EU has to be as flexible as possible. I can see that it has been flexible but it has to be more flexible on matters such as a green lane, which I think it can do within the terms of its mandate. If I was the EU, I would not do so now, because it will get nothing back from the negotiation. If it can get to a serious negotiation, it has a chance of resolving the issue.

I would say to loyalists that they have been exploited and used by other politicians throughout their history. They should really be standing up for and talking about their very deprived communities. They are right. That should be done politically. They should not let some of their people slip back into threats of violence. Ignoring the loyalists is a terrible mistake. It may be a small group of people, but it has a significant interest. We have to find a way to engage. Irish politicians have been much better at engaging with loyalists than any British politicians. I think British politicians should try harder at that.

Ms Michelle Gildernew

I thank Mr. Powell. It is genuinely great to see him again. I love his optimism. I do not see anyone in the Tory Cabinet who would be much better than the current incumbent, so good luck with that.

Mr. Jonathan Powell

It is not just about the person. It is about the political dynamics. Boris Johnson is clinging on by his fingernails, so he is having to pander. Anyone trying to run for leader would pander too. Once they are in the job, they do not have to pander so much. It is not that they are virtuous people but that political dynamics are a difficulty.

Chairman

Mr. Farry may be on mute. We do not have a representative from the Green Party. Sinn Féin has a second round.

Mr. Mickey Brady

I thank Mr. Powell for his presentation. The possibility of a border poll has been alluded to. That is integral to the Good Friday Agreement. We have met several recent secretaries of state and none has been able to give us a definitive answer regarding criteria. It seems nebulous at this point. It struck me that the current leader of the Labour Party, Keir Starmer, declared himself to be a unionist. What are Mr. Powell's views on the fact that the Labour Party should and might remain neutral on this issue and let the people of Ireland decide?

Preparation for a border poll has been mentioned. It is important that it does not happen like Brexit, which was almost a spontaneous thing where people did not know what they were voting for. We have not received a definitive answer to a question we have asked about establishing a citizens' assembly to deal with the issues involved in any constitutional change. What are Mr. Powell's views on that and its importance in continuing the ethos of the Good Friday Agreement?

As has been stated, the committee is on the implementation of the Good Friday Agreement but many parts of it do not seem to have been implemented or have been studiously ignored.

Mr. Jonathan Powell

The Good Friday Agreement is nebulous on the border poll. It will be very controversial when it comes to time for the Northern Ireland Secretary to make a decision. A Secretary resisting a border poll in light of repeated opinion polls that show a majority in favour of a united Ireland would be on very tricky ground legally, politically and in every other way. This is why I see it as interacting with Scotland and the referendum there. It does not interact legally but politically. If "No" is said to one and "Yes" is said to the other or vice versa it will be a real problem.

With regard to the Labour Party, it is possible to be in favour of the union yet say it is up to the people in Northern Ireland to decide on their future. That is not incompatible. I would favour Scotland remaining in a union with the United Kingdom but in the end it is up to the people of Scotland to decide. This is the point of consent. I think the same about Northern Ireland. I would like Northern Ireland to remain in the United Kingdom but it is up to the people of Northern Ireland. I do not think there is quite the stark line. What this all resulted from, as committee members know, is a Tory attack on the Labour Party trying to make it nervous. It is all about terminology rather than anything else. It must be for the people of Northern Ireland to decide their future and not anyone else. This is clear from the Good Friday Agreement.

I must admit I have not given much thought to a citizens' assembly. I said earlier that a failure to debate and discuss what a united Ireland might mean in practice would be quite dangerous. The example of Brexit is quite salient. If we had had a proper debate about what sort of Brexit we were speaking about and if people had realised what was happening there would have been very different numbers in the vote. We see the opinion polls in Britain now. They show very clearly that the majority of people think Brexit has been a failure. This is a danger in Northern Ireland. If there is a border poll without saying what will happen afterwards it would be dangerous. I do not know whether a citizens' assembly would be the right way to do it. It would only work if it were inclusive. As we have been saying, inclusivity works both ways. Everyone needs to be at the table if there is to be a proper discussion. It is worth discussing. There might be some trouble persuading unionists to participate in a citizens' assembly on this at present but perhaps at some stage it would be possible.

Ms Órfhlaith Begley

It is nice to hear from Mr. Powell. We are having a great discussion. I want to pick up on some commentary that I saw on social media before I came to the meeting. It is from Gordon Brown. He said that Britain is at war with the United States over Ireland. He said this with regard to Brexit and in particular with regard to the trade deal. He said it is now likely there will not be a trade deal between the United States and Britain unless the issues regarding Ireland are resolved in the time ahead. I want to get Mr. Powell's perspective on this. I have read that he did some work on the legislation being brought through Westminster by the British Government on the protocol. He commented that it would undermine the peace process and the Good Friday Agreement. What is his thinking on a future trade deal with the United States? How long does he think this will go on? Does he think there will be a solution? It cannot be easy with the current Prime Minister.

The Good Friday Agreement has many elements and aspects that have not yet been implemented. One in particular is the bill of rights for the North. At the time huge focus was placed on human rights and ensuring the protection of all citizens on the island of Ireland and particularly in the North. To date we do not have a bill of rights. The New Decade, New Approach deal sought to establish an ad hoc committee to oversee and consider implementation of a bill of rights. Unfortunately we do not yet have it. I would like a sense of the discussion at the time of the peace process and the talks with regard to the importance of human rights and in particular the bill of rights.

Mr. Jonathan Powell

I have not seen Mr. Brown's comments so I am not sure about them. My view is that a US-UK trade deal is pretty unlikely in the foreseeable future anyway, regardless of Northern Ireland, because the US is not in the business of doing trade deals at present. If it were it would be doing them in the Pacific. Even if it were, the negotiations would be incredibly difficult and long. There is a reason the EU and US have not managed to come to a trade deal despite repeated efforts. I am not holding my breath waiting for a US-UK trade deal but I am certain there will not be one if the UK is in breach of the protocol and international law. Why would a country even start negotiating a trade deal with a government that was not prepared to respect agreements that were designed not so long ago. This is a dead issue in every way. I know the US Government is pressing the British Government on the protocol. I hope it has influence, along with Congress and the EU itself. Here we are all allied on Ukraine but we are trying to undermine it by breaching agreements with our own allies. It is crazy.

With regard to the bill of rights I have a strong memory of lengthy discussions on the subject. Unfortunately I cannot remember at what stage we agreed what on the bill of rights. I hope the speculation about the British Government leaving the European Convention on Human Rights, ECHR, is just speculation. I do not believe it would or could. It would be another very big problem in the context of Northern Ireland if it tried to do so. Any British lawyer will say it is not possible for it to do so. I do not think it actually will. I can see why people would be nervous when we have not fulfilled the commitment on a bill of rights and we are speaking about quitting the ECHR. It makes it a very live political issue. I hope that future British Governments will do better at implementing commitments on this front.

Ms Órfhlaith Begley

Does Mr. Powell think, in hindsight, that more thought should have been given to giving responsibility for a border poll to the Secretary of State? Was it a mistake to give so much responsibility to the Secretary of State?

Mr. Jonathan Powell

Quite a lot of things in the Good Friday Agreement might have benefited from more thought at that time. It was all done in the middle of the night at the last minute. When we look back at it, it is a bit vague on quite a number of issues. In retrospect it would have been much better if there had been more detail on that and a series of other things. Thank goodness we got the agreement. Had we spent another three days and nights we might have found the thing unwinding rather than getting into greater detail. The idea always was that more detail would have to be negotiated. I did not realise it would mean nine years more negotiation before it was implemented.

People speak about the period between the Good Friday Agreement and the St. Andrews Agreement almost as wasted time. I do not know about this. In a way what happened during that time was that it allowed trust to be built through the negotiation. I have seen this elsewhere in the world. In many ways implementation is the single most important thing about a peace agreement. A peace agreement is never just a piece of paper. It does not build trust. We have a piece of paper because the two sides do not trust each other. They only come to trust each other when they start to implement it. This is why something such as the Oslo Accords fall over. It is because no one implements them.

The long painful process on decommissioning, getting the institutions up and running, and implementing the human rights provisions, language provisions and policing was not a waste. It was the crucial aspect of building trust. I spoke about Ian Paisley. The period from 2004 to 2006 was very important in building enough trust with him, and between him and Sinn Féin even though they were not meeting, to allow a lasting agreement and get Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness into government. One of the lessons of the Good Friday process for all negotiations around the world is always to think about the implementation phase even when in the early stages of negotiation.

A peace process is never over and goes on so the implementation phase is in many ways more important even than the piece of paper that one gets to.

Chairman

Very good.

Mr. Mickey Brady

It strikes me that many of the people in the current British Government who pontificate about the Good Friday Agreement do not appear to have actually read it. I would like to hear Mr. Powell's views on that.

Mr. Jonathan Powell

It is a manifestation of a bigger problem. It goes back to Boris Johnson saying that the Irish Border was just like the border between Camden and Islington. There is a complete misconception about the whole issue of Northern Ireland. There is a lack of interest and a lack of care. I have talked about the people who voted for him who could not care less about the issue. The Brexiteers always saw this problem of Northern Ireland. They knew it existed but just saw it as the tail wagging the dog and wondered why should they care about this whole Northern Ireland nonsense and we must just focus on the real issue, which is Brexit and setting Britain free. That is the problem and we are living with the consequences of that attitude.

Ms Michelle Gildernew

It is great to have this opportunity to delve deeper into questions. Mr. Powell talked about the period from 2004 to 2006 when trust was being built. From 2007 to 2011, Ian Paisley Senior became First Minister and Martin McGuinness became deputy First Minister, or joint First Ministers, which was probably the peak of the relationship. I look back at that time and think about the media and how people mocked their relationship by describing them as "the chuckle brothers" and so on but that was our best period of stability. When Peter Robinson replaced Ian Paisley as First Minister we saw the letter from America on the future of the Long Kesh site and how trust unravelled. I have watched subsequent First Ministers concede an increasing amount of that positive working relationship. I mean from the time of Peter Robinson to Arlene Foster, to Edwin Poots for a period and now Jeffrey Donaldson. Moreover, in the middle of all of that we had Brexit. It is my opinion that while political unionism has failed to engage with a lot of us on our future there certainly is a very broad sphere within civic unionism of those who are prepared to have those conversations and are interested in planning the future.

Earlier there was talk about inclusivity, whether Stormont has a future and Mr. Mickey Brady asked about a citizens' assembly. We need to find a vehicle to include people in that and within my own constituency there certainly is an appetite for change, to get things done and to be prepared to be involved in building a sustainable and equality-based future. I seek Mr. Powell's thoughts on all of that. I am sure he has talked to some of the same people to whom I have talked and he probably has heard all of this as well. Where do we need to go to ensure people are included in building a consensus to move forward, especially on an all-Ireland national health service, which is just one example of how we can work towards a better future?

Mr. Jonathan Powell

As Ms Gildernew has said, it is paradoxical that two people who were formed by and helped form the Troubles were able to work together more smoothly than people from successive generations. To be honest, that is pretty worrying but that may again be about personalities. I personally think that Jeffrey Donaldson is in a difficult position politically but when he was a deputy to Ian Paisley Snr., he was able to work very well across the aisle. Consequently, it is possible that Jeffrey, in different political circumstances, could work perfectly well across the political aisle on these things.

It did worry me that when we lost Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness, things got worse. Frankly, there was something pretty disturbing about that. Ms Gildernew is right that we need a broader discussion and I would take it further than what she said. She is right that civic unionism needs to be involved but I also think, she may not agree not agree with me on this point, that the rise of the Alliance Party and the middle ground, which will be very apparent in the census, is interesting and provides ballast for making cross-community things work in a different way. I mean that it does not have to be about identity and could be about issues such as the National Health Service, NHS, which was mentioned. It is paradoxical that there is a hospital in Derry that provides healthcare to people from Donegal with heart and other medical issues. One would have thought that practical co-operation things would be something that everyone could work on from both communities or neither community. That probably is the future, and I hope that is the future in Northern Ireland. The way forward is to get teeth into practical issues like that while involving unionists, nationalists, republicans and those who are neither. That can happen, and I hope I see it beginning to happen. Ms Gildernew is right that one talks to what one might call civic unionism. If one talks to middle-class unionist people in golf clubs and rugby clubs, they are going to take a much more nuanced view of the economy and the future of Ireland as a whole. That is where I see the hope.

Deputy James Lawless

I welcome Mr. Powell to the committee. I have followed his work with great interest for a long time and, indeed, his writings. I give him full credit for his involvement at a difficult time in terms of the Good Friday Agreement and what happened afterwards.

In light of more recent events and something that to an extent was stated as being a concern at the time, namely, the division of the Assembly under the Good Friday Agreement in terms of delineation and designation of members as they enter the Assembly in regard to what block they adhered to. I think there are two blocks and a category of "other". I recall that at the time, even though I was a steadfast and ardent supporter of the agreement and was delighted to see it being passed overwhelmingly on both sides of the island, there were some writings, particularly by those on the left who said that some representatives may not fit easily into either category and they were not satisfied with the other category. At the time it was probably quite an abstract academic concern but it has become more prominent and a live issue right now, and we see that with the Alliance Party and maybe some others. Perhaps that is an attitude that may grow. Already in this afternoon's session, we have heard talk about a middle ground. I understand that it was a necessary step to get cross-community consensus at the time. Does Mr. Powell envisage the matter will be revisited later as things, dare I say, become normalised or matured? He might give members some words of wisdom on that issue going forward.

Mr. Jonathan Powell

I thank the Deputy and I am not sure my words can be described as wisdom. Earlier I briefly mentioned that I think this is an important issue. It was crucial at the time to have power-sharing and, therefore, a way of reaching cross-community agreements. Due to the history of Northern Ireland where one party and one tradition had ruled totally and no-one else had a look in, you had to have a system that allowed power-sharing and allowed issues to be agreed by both communities together. I think that was a fundamental basis of the agreement.

There is a problem, however, and I have written about it a bit in the past, when it becomes permanent, as in Bosnia, when this can be a real problem. In Bosnia it led to appalling corruption, regimes are in power the whole time, there is no way to challenge them and one cannot get them out. It is leading now to really serious intergroup tensions and may well bust the actual peace agreement. So some flexibility needs to be built into this. The Alliance Party made a very fair point by asking what about us, and if one just has designation then even though we have a heck of a lot of votes, we do not get a say in these things because we are not designating one side or the other. As I have said already, it would be a mistake to upturn this at the moment because things are so sensitive. As I have also complained, when the current British Prime Minister is trying to redefine the terms of consent and cross-community consensus in a dangerous way, then we should stick pretty firmly to what is said in the agreement at the moment. If we can get the institutions up and running again and get back to stability in Northern Ireland, then there would be time to start thinking about the future. I mean this was all built-in initially to defend a Catholic or nationalist minority against unionist hegemony. Now the unionists, I suspect, will be a minority after the census and they may need protection too, so I think to change it just at that moment would be particularly pointed and not a good idea.

The Deputy is absolutely right that if this goes on forever, the Northern Ireland political system will not work so we will have to think about some way of getting to more normal politics. I am not quite sure how or when that will happen.

Deputy James Lawless

I thank Mr. Powell. That is quite interesting.

Senator Niall Blaney

I have a couple of questions, taking us back to that era around when the Good Friday agreement was formed. I listened closely to what Mr. Powell said about then Prime Minister Blair and the then Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, and he referenced the gambles they were taking. He is the fourth individual in the third meeting we have had discussing the architects of the Good Friday Agreement. There has been a theme from those who have presented. The others who presented were strongly of the opinion that people like John Hume, Seamus Mallon and David Trimble were certainly taking risks with their political careers. What is Mr. Powell's view in this regard? He referenced the prime ministers earlier. What is his view of those who took risks for the Good Friday Agreement?

How important was the American Administration in all of this? What was its role and how important was it? What key impact did both President Clinton and Senator George Mitchell have throughout the process?

Mr. Jonathan Powell

I thank the Senator for those questions because I wanted the opportunity to say that the people who took the real risks and deserved real credit for what happened are the politicians from Northern Ireland and not Tony Blair, Bertie Ahern or anyone else. It was them. I believe John Hume and David Trimble deserve their Nobel Peace Prize because in the end what we and the Irish Government were doing was trying to facilitate between the different sides. In particular, John Hume demonstrated real political bravery in reaching out to Gerry Adams at an early stage and being excoriated for it at the time. That should be well remembered by future generations for what he did.

On David Trimble, we have had some conversations over the years about this and he always says he was appalled that I was surprised that he was going to be brave in making peace. I was surprised because he got his job by being on the radical end of the party and yet when he got it he was determined to make peace, particularly around the time of Drumcree. He spoke up when that unfortunate family was burned to death and I thought he was very brave. I thought he was committed to making peace, which was fundamentally important.

I add to this Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, who led their movement, at great personal risk, into making peace. They also deserve an enormous amount of credit. There were substantial politicians and political leaders. Ian Paisley was not the sort of politician who would succeed in British politics but after he came back from his illness in 2004, he came back a rather different man. He told us he wanted to finish his life as "Dr. Yes" and not "Dr. No". He did not suddenly fold and make concessions but he really tried to get to peace, even when the rest of his party did not seem that keen on it. He, too, posthumously deserves an enormous amount of credit being given to him.

It is very important the British and Irish Governments could work so closely together but the real credit goes to those politicians. Northern Ireland was very lucky to have those politicians at that time.

On the role of the US Administration, I mentioned briefly that the role played by Bill Clinton was crucial from an early stage in sending out George Mitchell, as opposed to an economic envoy. George looked at the question of decommissioning and came up with the Mitchell principles, as well as chairing the talks. We would not have done it without that and there is no way there would have been a successful peace process without that happening.

Bill Clinton himself played a role in the three days around Good Friday on the phone, staying up all night and cajoling people. I particularly remember his call to the unionist leadership and I came down to tell them it was happening. That was the Ulster Unionist Party. There were also subsequent visits in trying to ensure the process worked. I include Hillary as well as Bill Clinton and both were really committed to the Northern Ireland peace process.

We could go back even further because when I was at the British embassy in Washington, my job was to stop Gerry Adams getting a visa to go to the US before a ceasefire. I thought I had it covered because I had the CIA, the State Department, the FBI and everyone else saying "No" but then at the last minute Senator Ted Kennedy did an end run on me through Nancy Soderberg to Bill Clinton and got him a visa. In retrospect, it was exactly the right thing to do; what Bill Clinton did was to give political hope. It was a very wise, albeit quite costly, decision in a political sense. John Major was not very happy and would not speak to him for three days afterwards. Maybe we could have made peace without the American role but it made it a heck of a lot easier and much more likely to succeed with the role played by Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton and George Mitchell, as well as many other American officials.

Chairman

Senator McGahon is just back from meeting all those congressmen in America.

Senator John McGahon

I thank Mr. Powell for appearing before us and we really appreciate it. John Smith died in 1994 and was on course to be prime minister in 1997. Tony Blair came though as a result and Mr. Powell first started working for Tony as his chief of staff when he was the leader of the Opposition in 1995, if I am correct. In those years of opposition between 1995 and 1997, was Tony Blair and Mr. Powell's team thinking about Northern Ireland? Was Northern Ireland very much on his agenda then? Was it more about circumstances around when he came into government with such a landslide in 1997 and they looked at Scottish devolution, House of Lords reform and Northern Ireland? Was it that once they got into government, they were looking at big issues with which to deal? At what point in Tony Blair's leadership between opposition and government did Northern Ireland become big on the agenda?

Mr. Jonathan Powell

I touched on this before but I can elaborate. As soon as he became leader on taking over from John Smith, one of the first things he did was to reverse the Labour Party's policy on Northern Ireland from being a persuader for unity to supporting John Major in the peace process almost regardless of anything else. He stuck to that. He wanted a policy of bipartisanship and he supported John Major even when he thought he was doing things wrong on Northern Ireland because he thought it so important that the peace process worked and he had consensus. From working in places like Colombia and Spain, we know that if there is not political consensus, it can become a political football and much harder to make peace. It was really a very wise decision and the Tories sort of stuck to it in subsequent years while we were in government. We had bipartisanship on the Northern Ireland issue, which was crucial.

The question on his personal commitment is interesting. I cannot quite explain it. He said it was something to do with his Orangewoman grandmother in Donegal on his summer holidays - I believe there is something to that - and he was conscious of Northern Ireland. In opposition, we spent time thinking about Northern Ireland. We met Sir John Chilcot, who at that stage was the Permanent Secretary in the Northern Ireland Office, along with Mo Mowlam, and we spent time thinking about what we would do in government.

As I mentioned, Tony wanted his first visit after becoming Prime Minister in May 1997 to be to Northern Ireland. The first time he went outside London, eight days after his election, he went to the agricultural show at Balmoral and made a speech to reassure unionists. He was afraid, correctly, that unionists would be nervous about a Labour Government and would think we would sell them out. There had not been such a government for a long time and they had memories of Harold Wilson and so on.

He was determined to use the political capital he got from his election to help solve the Northern Ireland issue. Again, as I said, there is no political advantage to that in Britain and one does not get any votes for making peace in Northern Ireland. To his credit, John Major devoted much time and effort to trying to make peace, again with no political benefit in Britain.

However, for Tony Blair it was not something he got interested in when in government. It was something he felt very deeply and in opposition he had decided this was going to be one of his top priorities. As I mentioned earlier, he took risks. There was risk in expediting things like bringing Sinn Féin in very quickly, which was dangerous for him, keeping the unionists in and persuading them to stay in despite the DUP being out and then saying he would get to an agreement within a year. His analysis was John Major had allowed the thing to unravel by not getting into inclusive talks. He found it politically difficult to do so and he kept Sinn Féin in the waiting room, which was a political mistake. I understand why he did it - his script was limited - but that was what Tony Blair was determined to do.

Again, as I mentioned earlier, the civil servants were telling him not to do it, that is, not to have a deadline of one year because if he did that, the whole thing would have gone bust and we would have had nothing to work with. They told him to play it long but he insisted on having that deadline. When we turned up in Belfast, I remember George Mitchell saying to Tony "I don't know why you've come. There's no chance of an agreement". We did not feel very good when he made that famous sound bite about the hand of history when we went into Hillsborough. He decided it was really important, he put his political capital into it and he really devoted a huge amount of time to it over his ten years as Prime Minister. He spent a great deal of time talking to unionist leaders, to Ian Paisley, to Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, to David Trimble, to John Hume and to all the leaders of the other parties, including Alliance. No British Prime Minister since the 19th century devoted that much time to the Irish question. Luckily, this time it actually led to success.

Senator John McGahon

Absolutely. Since Gladstone, really. Gladstone and Tony Blair are the two Prime Ministers who really focused on it.

I have two further questions. Mr. Powell talked abut the political advantage. I am very friendly with a guy Mr. Powell may remember, Andy Reid, who was a Member of Parliament for Loughborough from 1997 to 2010. I had dinner with him here recently. I remember talking to him about being a new MP in the 1997 intake. Mr. Powell is quite right there was zero political advantage for Tony Blair in even getting involved in Northern Ireland. Was that also the view of backbench Labour MPs or was the parliamentary party very much behind Tony Blair with regard to his direction on Northern Ireland?

Mr. Jonathan Powell

We pretty much had consensus in the Labour Party. Even the sort of Corbyn wing of the party supported what we were trying to do. They would have liked to do things differently, faster and all the rest but I think we had pretty much consensus. When he first changed the policy in 1994 it was a bit tricky but once he did that I do not remember any real dissent in the Labour Party on that issue. There may have been ups and downs but basically we had pretty solid support. As I said, there was the bipartisan aspect of getting the Tories to support us as we had supported them, which they more or less did. Occasionally, Iain Duncan Smith would play politics with it, but William Hague, for example, was pretty supportive. That was important.

Senator John McGahon

Everyone was on the same page.

Mr. Jonathan Powell

Yes.

Senator John McGahon

As a final question before I hand back to the Chairman or Senator Currie, will Mr. Powell summarise the approach of Tony Blair's Government to Northern Ireland compared with that of Boris Johnson's? Mr. Powell should feel free to not be diplomatic with his answer.

Mr. Jonathan Powell

The Senator need not worry about that. It is basically a difference between trying to build something over a long period, devoting real political capital and effort to building trust, building understanding, establishing an inclusive process and ending a problem that has blighted our islands for generations and casually destroying something through vandalism for no purpose. What they are doing is going to solve precisely nothing. We are going to end up back in negotiations at some stage. In the meantime, however, we will have trashed our reputation, we will have serious political problems in Northern Ireland and we may even have provoked some violence. It is completely pointless. It is without any political purpose other than survival inside the Conservative Party, and it is enormously destructive to our bilateral relations with Ireland, the EU and the US. It makes me despair, to be honest.

Senator John McGahon

I thank Mr. Powell.

Chairman

I will make one point. It is always good to have a Prime Minister who will listen to their civil servants but make their own way forward. Some very serious civil servants seem to have been lost recently in Britain. They resigned at that time. They were probably some top-class administrators in Britain who were very much behind what Tony Blair and Mr. Powell were doing at that time. I feel the absence of that moderate or middle ground opinion on all these issues, especially under Boris Johnson. He is a bit like Trump in that whatever is in his head on the day is what he does regardless. I note his comments on a new Roman empire in Europe. He is living in the 18th century, if not the 17th, as far as his view of Britain in the world is concerned.

On a positive note, what we must do, and our roles as politicians who are members of this committee, is build our relationships with the parties in the UK, including the Tory Party, the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats too. One thing that is absent is our presence over there and their presence here, because of Covid and so on. One of our tasks is to do that. The second one is to engage with unionism. The most important point Mr. Powell made was there are one million people in Northern Ireland for whom, if we are to bring them into a united Ireland, we must ensure first that the Good Friday Agreement works and that we have consensus and change, North-South bodies that work and an Executive that works. Senator Currie and I were talking about this earlier. I am just commenting here rather than putting a question to Mr. Powell, but this has to be our priority as well. That is the committee's job. Our biggest problem is engaging with unionism. I do not know if anybody else feels that here. Senator Currie may wish to comment on it.

Senator Emer Currie

Following on from my question earlier, I am interested to hear how Mr. Powell feels we should be engaging with the Protestant, unionist and loyalist community. I very much feel there is no role for paramilitarism. It should have left the stage a long time ago and in fact the problems we talk about in terms of cycles of poverty, drugs, coercive control of communities, prosperity and hope are not going to be solved by paramilitaries. How would Mr. Powell advise us to engage with loyalism but not paramilitarism?

Mr. Jonathan Powell

Let me start with that and then go back to what the Chairman said. On the paramilitarism, it is very hard to distinguish between it and political tendencies. That would be true in our dealings with Sinn Féin, when we were criticised for talking to terrorists, and you are talking to people who have dual roles, military and political. In the case of the loyalists I would go further than the Senator and say not just should they not exist now but that they should never have existed. They should never have been involved in paramilitarism. The trouble is, in the absence of strong political leaders if you do not engage the groups at all they find themselves exploited more and more by unscrupulous politicians from other parties and less and less able to express the political views of their communities.

Always in these cases you want a dual-track approach. You need a really tough security approach on the paramilitarism and the criminality because the people who are suffering are their own communities. It is not someone else who is suffering for what they are doing and their drug-dealing, prostitution and all the rest of it. It is their communities. The police have to, and I believe have been, finding better ways to try to tackle that and they really should come down hard on that criminality. At the same time as you push down, you should have a political way out. Those communities need to have a voice of some sort. I do not think they find their voice in the existing political parties in Northern Ireland. I mean the big political parties. It would be a mistake to just ignore them, even if they are not very large groups. I would take that dual approach of a security and police approach. In fact, if the security service has a role, it should involve that as well as dissident republicans, because it is equally a threat and needs to be dealt with.

In terms of the parliaments, there are many leaders on the backbenches in both the Conservative Party and the Labour Party who would share my views and feel strongly about trying to maintain the good relationship we have built between the two countries. They are committed to maintaining the Good Friday Agreement. I urge the committee to reach out to those parliamentarians and act as a bridge. I hope this will be a temporary phenomenon and Boris Johnson will lead us back to a better relationship and negotiations to resolve the protocol issue. While it can be difficult to engage with unionists, I urge the committee to persevere and not to give up just because they said "No" the first two or three times. Even if it sometimes means private engagement rather than public, I would urge that. It can be frustrating. I spent ten years doing it, so I know it is frustrating but it is definitely worth doing. If you are not talking to them, their fears can become compounded and multiplied and more dangerous. What I learned from ten years of working on the Northern Ireland peace process is the more engagement the better. Without engagement, a vacuum is opened up that all too often gets filled by violence.

Chairman

We are reaching the end of our discussion with Mr. Powell. Does any other member wish to come in?

Ms Michelle Gildernew

This has been a fascinating and useful discussion. Mr. Powell's experience is shining through. There is lots of engagement at council level, and there was at assembly level while it was still functioning. Even when it was not functioning we would still have engaged extensively with unionists and loyalism. There are lots of unionists and Protestants engaged in the united Ireland debate. The challenge now is finding additional ways to engage with unionists on the issue of a new Ireland. That engagement is going on and that trust is being built. I have certainly benefited from relationships I have developed over the past 20 or 30 years with people within my own community, across parties. How do we find additional ways of engaging in order to enable people to be involved in discussions around our future and unity as that develops?

Mr. Jonathan Powell

It is a very good question. I do not have a magic answer. It is basically about making it safe for them. Any unionist, let alone a unionist political leader, does not want to find themselves caught out and accused of being a Lundy. We have to find ways of making that conversation safe. Ideally, that would involve the two Governments, although it is difficult with the current state of the British Government. If there were two positive Governments trying to do something, that might make it easier because they could provide the political umbrella that would allow such discussions to take place without people getting criticised, the same way they did during the talks process. I do not want to say we are waiting for Boris for everything but we are waiting, or preparing, for a period where that is possible. If the Irish Government can establish a citizens' assembly or something else like that, that is what I would spend my time doing. One has to make it a safe space for unionists to do this. They do not want their political careers curtailed because they are caught talking publicly about a united Ireland. It needs to be a sensible thing for them to be doing. Even if they were to say why they do not want it, at least that is a discussion. I do not have a magic answer. It is about trying to get to a dialogue. It would probably have to start with private dialogue and then expand to something more when they have cover to do it. That would be worth trying to do.

Ms Michelle Gildernew

Absolutely. We do not want people to be left behind. That is where that vacuum is created and that is more dangerous. We have had great engagement in this committee over the years. I remember one meeting with women from loyalist communities a few years back. They spoke about the fear of raising their heads in their own communities. The idea of the two Governments giving that kind of political cover and having a citizens' assembly is interesting, even if unionists justify it by saying they do not intend to be left behind and need to have their views heard. That is something we will take forward. I thank Mr. Powell for giving us his time. It is genuinely great to see him again.

Chairman

I thank Mr. Powell most sincerely for his time and his interest, for answering the questions, for the clarity of his views and for the knowledge he has given us. It has added value to our deliberations now and into the future. As a student of history, I reiterate that the leadership shown by Mr. Powell's Government under Tony Blair was remarkable. As he said, John Major and other Prime Ministers also played their part. It brought peace to our land and we want that to continue. What we will take away from Mr. Powell's contribution is what we need to do ourselves into the future. It has been a great pleasure to have him with us. No doubt we will meet again.

The joint committee went into private session at 3.17 p.m. and adjourned at 3.21 p.m. until 1.30 p.m. on Thursday, 7 July 2022.