Thatcher Negotiated With Ira Terrorists.

[Julian2]

Margaret Thatcher used secret go-between in attempt to end IRA hunger strikes

 

MARGARET Thatcher used a secret middleman in an attempt to end the IRA hunger strikes that were threatening her government, newly released papers reveal.

 

Northern Ireland tensions, along with rioting on Britain's streets and criticism from within her own ranks amid an economic crisis were the issues that tested the mettle of the 'Iron Lady' in the early 1980s, the official records for 1981 released by the National Archives show.

 

Officially the then Mrs Thatcher insisted she would not bow to the demands of republican prisoners held in Northern Ireland's Maze Prison for so-called "special status". However the files, released under the 30-year rule, show how her government sent messages to the IRA leadership through a secret intermediary promising concessions if the hunger strikes were called off.

 

The hunger strikes, led by MP Bobby Sands, in 1981 triggered one of the worst crises of the Troubles, galvanising support for the republicans and turning Baroness Thatcher into a hate figure for much of Northern Ireland's nationalist community.

 

he government's perceived intransigence drew widespread international condemnation and by the beginning of July, the pressure on the prime minister was intense.

 

Four hunger strikers had died, including 27-year-old Sands, who had secured a propaganda coup, winning an election as an MP after standing in the Fermanagh and South Tyrone by-election.

 

So when the remaining hunger strikers issued a statement dropping their demand to be treated as "prisoners of war", Baroness Thatcher authorised a message to be sent setting out the concessions the government would make if the strikes were ended, PA reports said.

 

The records depict a prime minister who was also grappling with violent dissent and sharp criticism from her own allies.

 

 

 

The papers were being made public just five days before the London premiere of The Iron Lady, the film about Thatcher's career starring Meryl Streep.

 

The documents were made public under Britain's policy of withholding sensitive official documents for 30 years.

 

Elected in 1979, Baroness Thatcher - now aged 86 - early on cut public spending and prioritised efforts to tame Britain's rocketing inflation rate, bringing a dramatic fall in industrial output and pushing unemployment to 2.5 million.

 

In London's ethnically diverse Brixton neighbourhood, and in the impoverished Toxteth suburb of the northern city of Liverpool, anger over joblessness helped fuel the country's worst riots in decades.

 

Undeterred, the government's March budget had introduced a new financial squeeze, with Treasury chief Geoffrey Howe announcing plans to raise taxes.

 

That led to a crisis July 23 Cabinet meeting in which Baroness Thatcher was confronted by internal critics - known as the "wets" after the private school slang for "weak" - who advocated an abrupt change of economic policy to appease public anger.

 

According to minutes of the meeting, Thatcher's critics, many of them supporters of her predecessor Edward Heath, laid out a detailed attack.

 

"With unemployment totals rising to 3 million later in the year, and following the recent rioting in a number of cities, the tolerance of society was now stretched near to its limit," the critics argued, according to the note.

 

"To give people renewed hope and confidence for the future, it was essential to take new and constructive action urgently," the document said the leader was told.

 

Baroness Thatcher's combative press secretary Bernard Ingham fired off a memo warning his boss that she led "a manifestly divided and warring Cabinet."

 

In her memoirs, Baroness Thatcher described the meeting as "one of the bitterest arguments on the economy, or any subject, that I can ever recall taking place at Cabinet."

 

She was not deterred. The then Mrs Thatcher fired education secretary Mark Carlisle; Christopher Soames, the leader of the House of Lords; and Ian Gilmour, a senior foreign office minister.

 

She switched Jim Prior, then the employment secretary, to the Northern Ireland Office, to stifle his influence over economic policy. The move calmed loyalists who had feared that the prime minister could be swayed by her opponents.

 

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/margaret-thatcher-used-secret-go-between-in-attempt-to-end-ira-hunger-strikes/story-e6frg6so-1226233259277