David Trimble: Tony Blair put ‘relentless pressure’ on first minister to get Stormont up and running before decommissioning says former director of communications David Kerr

David Kerr, who also worked for Lord Trimble as director of communications during the Belfast Agreement negotiations, said the former prime minister “put David under relentless pressure” to enter an Executive with Sinn Fein, ahead of any IRA disarmament throughout 1999.

Mr Kerr recollected the number of times Mr Blair attempted to cajole Lord Trimble and a deeply divided Ulster Unionist Party into a power-sharing administration without a single bullet being decommissioned.

He said: “The issue of IRA decommissioning along with changes to the police and the release of paramilitary prisoners were the ones that led to David’s downfall. The pressure on him to move first started after Bertie Ahern gave an interview in the first weekend of February 1999 in which he expressed the view that Sinn Fein should not be in an Executive without IRA having to decommission. We thought that was a seismic shift in thinking and that a line had been drawn in the sand.

“Blair was never as clear on the record, in public but back then David thought the prime minister did share the same view as Bertie.”

Lord Trimble’s former special advisor continued: “Then we come to April 1999 at a summit at Hillsborough where Blair effectively capitulated on that point even though he knew fine well the divisions in the UUP and the political cost of David going in first without decommissioning.

“There was yet another attempt to bounce David into an Executive when more talks were held in Downing Street in May 1999, I remember it well because I was taking notes. Blair’s proposal was later rejected by the UUP Assembly group of MLAs.

“Again in June 1999 back at Castle Buildings in Stormont Blair was still pushing the line about us starting the Executive without IRA decommissioning. We held out and then in September and October there was George Mitchell’s review of the agreement and then only an IRA statement, not product.”

Mr Kerr said the Blair government then threatened to go nuclear on the UUP in November 1999 warning Lord Trimble and the party that they intended to shut the Assembly down for good unless they agreed to go into government without any guns given up.

“To his credit Peter Mandelson, then secretary of state, agreed with our precondition that we would only go into government for eight weeks and if there was no movement on decommissioning then we would pull out of it.

“David then went into the Executive after narrowly winning a vote on the Ulster Unionist Council by 58% to 42% that November.

“That was the sort of pressure he was under from Blair in that one year alone. I was by his side most of the time in talks and negotiations, and I can count at least four times maybe five when David Trimble came under relentless pressure to jump first.”

Mr Kerr said Lord Trimble was still a believer in the Belfast Agreement because it had enshrined the principle of consent in the settlement.

“Sinn Fein had accepted what they used to call the ‘unionist veto’ and their supporters weren’t very enthusiastic about selling the agreement on the doorsteps.

“The only reason I believe they were able to sell the Good Friday Agreement to their base was the behaviour of the DUP. The Sinn Fein leadership were able to hide the bits of the Belfast Agreement they didn’t like behind the barrage of rhetoric and outrage from the anti-agreement unionists.”

Among other issues Mr Kerr regards as Tony Blair’s duplicity was the IRA on-the-run letters.

“I was at his side through the talks and negotiations, and I recall David telling Blair there was no way the UUP would accept those get-out-of-jail free cards for the IRA.

“It wasn’t raised again because Blair went behind David’s back and gave out the letters anyway,” he added.