Trimble told by Blair to ‘get lost’ over timing of border poll, records show
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Former UUP leader David Trimble was effectively told by Tony Blair to “get lost” over the timing of a border poll, according to previously confidential reports. Under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, the UK government is obliged to call a referendum in Northern Ireland if there is evidence of a shift in public opinion in favour of Irish unity.
Files released by the Irish Government as part of the annual release of state records show that Mr Trimble was repeatedly engaged in a campaign in 2002 to hold such a vote on the same day as upcoming elections for the Northern Ireland Assembly – which was at that point looking set for May of the next year.
The records from the National Archives in Dublin show that the SDLP and the Irish government were heavily against the idea. In March 2002, the UUP leader publicly supported the idea of holding a border poll, adding that it would “call the republican bluff”.
The move was seen partly as a bid to drive turnout in the Assembly elections, although questions were raised about whether this would benefit the DUP over the UUP. Mr Trimble said it would put the issue to bed for “another generation” – amid an expectation based on demographics that the vote would go in unionists’ favour.
The call came at the same time that he described the Republic of Ireland as a “pathetic, sectarian, mono-ethnic, mono-cultural State”. His campaign for the poll continued publicly and privately for months. In the files, Irish officials record that the SDLP believed that holding such a vote on the same day as the Assembly elections would be a “sectarian blood bath” – and that the party would be setting out its total opposition to the proposal.
