Brian Faulkner

Arthur Brian Deane Faulkner , later Baron Faulkner of Downpatrick (born February 18, 1921 in Helen's Bay , County Down , Northern Ireland ; † March 3, 1977 near Saintfield , County Down), was a Northern Irish politician and the sixth and last Prime Minister Northern Ireland .

background

Faulkner, the elder of two brothers, first attended a school in Northern Ireland, but was sent to St Columba's Anglican College in Rathfarnham near Dublin (in what was then the Irish Free State ) at the age of 14 . His best friend there was the future Irish politician Michael Yeats , the son of the poet William Butler Yeats .

Faulkner studied law at Queen's University of Belfast from 1939 , but gave up studies at the beginning of World War II to work in his parents' shirt factory.

Early political activity

Faulkner was the first of his family to campaign for Northern Ireland to remain with Great Britain. In 1949 he was elected to the Parliament of Northern Ireland as a candidate for the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) for the constituency of East Down . His vocal approach to politics earned him a prominent position as a backbencher . At that time he was the youngest member of parliament.

1956 Faulkner was offered the post of Parliamentary State Secretary in the Ministry of Finance, who also acted as Chief Whip .

Ministerial post

Faulkner was appointed Minister of the Interior of Northern Ireland in 1959. He was able to make a name for himself through his actions against the IRA during the Border Campaign, especially with the right wing of the Ulster Unionists.

When Terence O'Neill became Prime Minister in 1963, this offered him the post of Minister of Commerce, although Faulkner and O'Neill were rivals for the office of Prime Minister. Faulkner accepted the offer and was successful in this function until his resignation. The nationalist opposition also recognized this.

His resignation was linked to a dispute over the "how and when" of reforms that the Labor Party in ruling Britain wanted to implement. Ultimately, this dispute also marked the end of the political career of Terence O'Neill, who stepped down from Prime Minister's office because of poor performance in the Northern Irish parliamentary elections in April 1969. In the following fight vote, Faulkner was again denied success because O'Neill cast his vote in favor of his cousin James Chichester-Clark . In 1970 Faulkner became the Father of the House .

In a political turnaround, Faulkner came back into the cabinet as development minister to implement the very reforms that had been the main reason for his withdrawal from O'Neill's government. Chichester-Clark resigned in 1971.

prime minister

Beginning

Faulkner finally achieved his political goal when he was elected chairman of the UUP in March 1971 and then Prime Minister of Northern Ireland. His one-year tenure was a disaster for him and the 50-year reign of the UUP. His innovative approach was the non-unionists and former NILP -Abgeordneten David Bleakley a cabinet post ( Community Relations to give).

In June 1971 he proposed the establishment of three new parliamentary committees. The opposition should be chaired in two committees.

The first difficulties

However, events caught up with this initiative, which was radical for the time. The shooting of two nationalist youths by members of the British armed forces in Derry led the Social Democratic and Labor Party (SDLP) to boycott Parliament.

The political climate deteriorated further when Faulkner introduced a policy of internment on August 9, 1971 . Instead of calming the situation, it made it much worse. Despite this measure, Faulkner continued to pursue his policy and, after Bleakley's resignation, appointed the prominent Catholic politician Gerard Newe to the cabinet.

However, Faulkner continued to insist that the safety of the population was his primary concern. In January 1972, during a protest march against the internment, a massacre occurred in which British paratroopers shot thirteen unarmed demonstrators. What went down in history as Bloody Sunday was the end of the Faulkner administration. In March 1972 Faulkner refused to maintain a government without governance. The British government had decided to bring them back to London. The Northern Ireland Parliament was then dissolved and Northern Ireland was governed from London by a Northern Ireland Minister ( direct rule ) from March 24th .

Immediately after the dissolution of parliament, Faulkner tried, together with the Vanguard Progressive Unionist Party , to take action against the measure of the direct rule .

Chief Minister

On the basis of an ordinance of the British government, elections for the newly established Northern Ireland Assembly were held in June 1973 using the transferable individual voting procedure. The aim was to give the nationalist part of the population a stronger representation in parliament. The UUP was divided into two camps by the elections. A large minority refused to participate or collaborate with the nationalists. Faulkner was ultimately elected Chief Minister of the Northern Ireland Executive in a coalition of UUP, SDLP and Alliance Party of Northern Ireland . This government closed on 9 December 1973, the Agreement of Sunningdale ( Sunningdale Agreement ab) which far-reaching involvement of the Catholic population as well as cooperation with the Republic of Ireland Council of Ireland foresaw.

Many in the UUP had the impression that Faulkner had made too many concessions. In particular, cooperation with the Republic of Ireland was categorically rejected by many members. Finally in 1974 the opponents of the Sunningdale Agreement prevailed in the UUP. Faulkner was voted out of office as chairman of the UUP and replaced by Harry West . Faulkner left the UUP and founded the Unionist Party of Northern Ireland (UPNI).

The coalition only lasted six months. It broke up in May 1974 during a strike by the unionist labor movement ( Ulster Workers Council Strike ). Loyalist paramilitary organizations intimidated factory workers and erected roadblocks. The strike was tacitly supported by many unionists. In the elections to the Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention in 1975 Faulkner's party won only five of the 78 possible seats, so that in 1976 he decided to turn his back on politics.

On February 7, 1977 Faulkner was raised to the nobility to peer and received the title of Baron Faulkner of Downpatrick .

Personal

Faulkner married Lucy Forsythe, secretary to then Prime Minister Basil Brooke , in 1951 , whom he had met through their shared hunt. They had two sons and a daughter. The Faulkners lived in a heavily fortified country house near Seaforde .

Faulkner, himself an avid hunter, died in a riding accident while fox hunting at the age of 56 on March 3, 1977 near Saintfield , County Down . His 24-day period in the nobility is considered to be the shortest in British history.

Footnotes

1. ↑ ulsterbiography ( Memento of the original from March 2, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
2. ↑ http://www.leighrayment.com/reppeers/peerrecords.htm

literature

• Brian Faulkner: Memoirs of a Statesman , Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1978 (posthumous autobiography)
• David Bleakley: Faulkner , Mowbrays, London, 1974
• Andrew Boyd: Brian Faulkner and the Crisis of Ulster Unionism , Anvil Books, Tralee, Ireland, 1972.
• The Hon. Michael Faulkner: The Blue Cabin , Blackstaff Press, Belfast, 2006.
• Mark Carruthers: Brian Faulkner 'Soft Hardliner': an assessment of political leadership in a divided society , unpublished master's thesis (MSc) from Queen's University Belfast (QUB), 1989.
• James P. Condre: Brian Faulkner - Ulster Unionist: The long road to the premiership , PhD thesis, University of Ulster, 2005.