The heavy hitters from Department of Foreign Affairs outposts were back on home soil for a heads of mission event. In their conversations with colleagues, three of those dealing with British-Irish and North-South relations probably had interesting updates to offer about the changing dynamics where they operate. 

Ruairi De Burca, director general, Ireland, United Kingdom and Americas; Martin Fraser, Ireland’s ambassador to the UK, and Laurence Simms, joint secretary to the British-Irish Intergovernmental Secretariat in Belfast are the trio in question.

As they were finalising their preparations for their in-house gathering, Britain’s Labour Party was basking in the success of two by-election results where massive Conservative party majorities were overturned. In mid-Bedfordshire, Labour overcame a 24,664-vote Tory advantage to win the seat for the first time. In Tamworth, Labour benefitted from a 23.9 per cent swing.

That Tamworth result was the third time this year that Labour recorded a 20 per cent swing, following by-election victories in Selby and Ainsty in July and Rutherglen and Hamilton West earlier this month.  

Massive confidence vote for Keir Starmer

The Conservatives have been in power at Westminster since 2010. In the 650-seat parliament, the gap between Rishi Sunak’s Tories and Labour is considerable: 352 seats to 199, with the Scottish National Party having 43 representatives and the Liberal Democrats 15. The recent by-election results and the consistent patterns in opinion polls have Labour leader Keir Starmer believing that he could be able to succeed where his two recent predecessors, Jeremy Corbyn and Ed Miliband, failed.

Starmer must be encouraged by the soundings taken in red wall constituencies, those seats in Northern England and the Midlands where in recent elections the Conservatives captured what were traditional Labour Party seats. 

But for Labour, the bonus of recent times is what’s happening in Scotland.  

The Scottish National Party (SNP) seems to be in disarray. Last March, after fourteen years as Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon resigned and also vacated her role as party leader in controversial circumstances. Her successor, Humza Yousaf, has so far been unable to address the chaos that followed Sturgeon’s abrupt departure.  

The Rutherglen and Hamilton by-election earlier this month took place because an SNP MP, Margaret Ferrier, was ousted by her constituents after she broke Covid rules. It delivered a massive confidence boost for Starmer and the Labour Party.

Labour have increased their chances of forming a Government

In the 1997 general election that brought Tony Blair and Labour to power, the party won 56 of the 72 Scotland seats, the SNP won 6, the Liberal Democrats 10 and the Conservatives none. Three elections later, the total number of seats in play was down to 59 and under Gordon Brown, Labour was still the dominant force, securing 41 seats, compared to 11 Lib Dems, 6 SNP and 1 Conservative.  

But in the three subsequent general elections, Labour disintegrated and the SNP soared as the figures show:

• 2015: Labour 1,  SNP 56
• 2017: Labour 7, SNP 35 
• 2019: Labour 1, SNP 58   

If Labour under Starmer can exploit the SNP’s meltdown and reclaim 20-plus seats in Scotland in the next general election, it will significantly increase the party’s chances of forming a government in Westminster.

On Friday, October 6, Patrick Maguire filed a story for the London Times about a “softly spoken 47-year-old who has arguably done as much to alter the course of Labour history as any of its leaders”.  In his opening sentence, Maguire stated that “nobody without elected office wields as much power” as Morgan McSweeney from Macroom, Co Cork.

He explained how in the summer of 1994, as a 17-year-old, McSweeney had emigrated to London. His father Timmy, an accountant, is a stalwart of Macroom’s GAA club. His aunt was a Fine Gael councillor. His first cousin, Clare Mungovan, “is a special advisor to the Fine Gael leader and Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar” and McSweeney is “the real power behind Starmer – who would rather stay in the shadows”.

In his story, Maguire quoted an unnamed colleague of McSweeney as saying: “He has that sort of restlessness and data-driven mentality you associate with Dominic Cummings but without the madness.” 

As Starmer’s campaign director, Morgan McSweeney is set to be a major force in the next British general election. His wife, Imogen Walker, is a former Labour member of Lambeth Council. She served as Vice-President of the RSCPA for ten years up to 2019 and founded the Animal Welfare Champions network in London. But she is now based in her native Scotland, living near Lanark and working up her campaign as the party’s Westminster election candidate in the newly-created Hamilton and Clyde Valley constituency.  

Labour lines up the big political guns

Starmer has his own insights into British-Irish relations. From February 2003 to November 2007, he served as human rights advisor to Northern Ireland’s Policing Board. The period coincided with the PSNI bedding in as the replacement of the RUC and Sinn Féin representatives taking their seats on the Policing Board and backing justice and policing reforms for the first time.

Starmer’s appointment of Wolverhampton MP, 58-year-old Pat McFadden as the Labour Party national campaign director last month was also noted by Irish diplomats. He was born in the Scottish town of Paisley but his parents James and Annie had emigrated from the Donegal Gaeltacht area of Cloughaneely and the family regularly returned to holiday in Ireland.  

A Celtic supporter, Pat McFadden is respected in Labour Party circles as an able “fixer.” Before he was elected to Westminster, he was an aide to Tony Blair and was his political secretary during his time as prime minister.  He was sacked from Labour’s front bench under Jeremy Corbyn for what the leadership described as “repeated acts of disloyalty”. An outspoken opponent of Brexit, McFadden is again a major player within Starmer’s Labour Party.

Hilary Benn, appointed shadow secretary of state for Northern Ireland by Keir Starmer last month, is another Labour MP with insights on British-Irish issues. Born in Hammersmith, he has served as MP for the Leeds Central constituency since 1999.  He is the son of the left-of-centre Labour politician, the late Tony Benn.  

Appointments send strong signal on Northern issues

He served as secretary for international development under Gordon Brown (2003-2007) and afterwards unsuccessfully contested the Labour deputy leadership. In opposition, for a time he was the shadow foreign secretary. His first-hand experience of Irish issues came after he was elected chairman of the Exiting the EU House of Commons select committee. He defeated a pro-Brexit Labour MP, Clare Hoey, for that role. She is a native of Mallusk, Co Antrim but represented the Vauxhall constituency for the three decades up to 2019.

I met Hillary Benn in his role as chair of what became known as the Brexit committee, visiting Ireland, including border areas, on fact-finding missions during the UK’s preparations to leave the European Union. He is highly respected in Dublin.  

The Ulster Unionist Party leader, Doug Beattie, welcomed his appointment as shadow secretary of state last month, saying the “appointment of an individual with such an extensive political career is an indication of the importance the Labour Party leader places on Northern Ireland”.

The SDLP leader, Colum Eastwood, who represents the Foyle constituency in Westminster, described the appointment as a “strong signal” and a “serious move by Keir Starmer that underscores his interest in addressing the significant issues facing the North”.

Sue Gray, Keir Starmer’s chief of staff, joins Hilary Benn, Pat McFadden and Morgan McSweeney to complete the formidable quartet of powerful Labour figures with a significant track record on British-Irish relations. Her work became headline news in January last year when, in her report into what was known as “Partygate”, she highlighted the “serious failure” in the standard of leadership.  Her conclusions had a role in the demise of Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

Tory tormentor Sue Gray is back in the political frame

Gray was a second permanent secretary in the Cabinet office at the time she worked on that report. In March 2023, when it became known that she would be leaving her public service role to become Keir Starmer’s chief of staff, Gray was the subject of many critical articles in the Tory press.  

Her back story includes a number of periods spent in Ireland. In January 2018, she moved from London to Belfast to become permanent secretary at the Department of Finance in Belfast. It was widely believed that Gray came with a mandate to shake up the dozy aspects of the structures in Stormont and that the plan included appointing her head of the Civil Service.

But when the vacancy occurred and she applied for it, both the First Minister Arlene Foster and the Deputy First Minister Michelle O’Neill agreed she was not the appropriate candidate. Gray returned to London and to responsibilities that ultimately had a role in the change of leadership in the Conservative party.

Like Pat McFadden and Morgan McSweeney, her parents were Irish immigrants.  Her father, Leo, was a furniture salesman and her mother, Cissy (Anastasia), a barmaid in the Oakdale Arms in the Tottenham area of north London.  She was in her late teens when her father died suddenly in 1975. Changed circumstances meant that, rather than go to university, she joined the civil service from secondary school.  

She married a joiner and part-time country and western singer, Bill Conlon, from Portaferry in Co Down at Newtownards registry office in March 1985. They were both 27 and with Gray on a career break, they took on the challenge of managing the Cove Bar near Newry. It was an unusual choice for a Londoner during one of the most dangerous periods of the Troubles.

Nuances and challenges of Anglo-Irish relations

They returned to London two years later where their sons Liam and Ciaran were born and Gray, returning to work, climbed to the highest rungs of the civil service ladder. Liam became the chairman of the Labour Party’s Irish Society. Earlier this year there was speculation that he might contest the Beckenham Westminster constituency where Conservative Bob Stewart had a 14,258-vote majority in 2019.

That awareness of the nuances and challenges of British-Irish relations within Keir Starmer’s inner circle suggests he will have the knowledge to allow him to competently engage with Dublin and Belfast if he becomes British prime minister after the next General Election. Tony Blair was in a similar position in May 1997.  As well as his own family ties and the advice of able colleagues in the Labour Party, he could build on the good work of his predecessor, John Major. 

The Good Friday Agreement was signed eleven months after Blair came to office. There is little possibility of Starmer making such an impact. But awareness of the issues and the possibilities will not be an obstacle for him.

Compared to Labour, how switched on is Rishi Sunak’s Conservative party about British-Irish relations?  His foreign policy advisor is John Bew, son of Belfast-born Paul Bew, once an advisor to the Ulster Unionist Party leader, the late David Trimble and now a crossbench peer in the House of Lords. 

John Bew was a professor at King’s College in London when the Conservative Party took note of his talents.  He was an advisor to Boris Johnson and played a significant role in the Windsor framework post-Brexit negotiations. But these days, like his boss Sunak, his primary focus is the troubled Middle East landscape. During the week, the pair were photographed locked in deep discussions on a flight to Israel.

Confessions of a ridiculous Brexit fanatic

The day-to-day responsibility for addressing the impasse at Stormont and relations with the Irish government is left to the Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris MP and his junior ministers, Steve Baker MP and Jonathan Caine (Lord Caine). 

Heaton-Harris is carrying out a lot of the face-to-face meetings with the Northern Ireland parties as he attempts to work up a formula that might restore power-sharing.  

Caine has been assigned the almost impossible legacy portfolio. He was a friend of David Cameron early in their careers and served as an advisor to several Northern Ireland secretaries. He was brought up in Leeds but his paternal ancestors came from west Mayo.

Baker, like Heaton-Harris, was once an ardent Brexiteer and chaired the European Research Group from 2016 to 2017 and again from 2019 to 2019. Since he was given his Northern Ireland responsibilities, he has revisited some of his past positions and, in some cases, altered his stance. That pattern continued during the week when he addressed the British-Irish Assembly in Kildare. His remarks earned him this verdict of columnist Tom Peck in the London Independent: “Clueless confessions of a ridiculous Brexit fanatic.”

At the Co Kildare gathering, Baker had suggested that any future border poll should require a super majority to allow for a united Ireland.  He asked the gathering: “Would anyone here seriously want a 50 per cent plus one united Ireland result in Northern Ireland?” His expressions of his personal views didn’t end there.  With the benefit of hindsight, he said he now regretted that it did not require the support of 60 per cent in a referendum to trigger the UK’s exit from the European Union.

The recorded result in the Brexit referendum held on June 24,^, 2016 was 51.9 per cent to leave and 48.1 per cent to remain. Based on the revised thinking of Baker, one of the leading pro-Brexit campaigners, the UK would still be a member of the European Union. 

Donaldson experiences visible discomfort

It is also worth noting that in his memoir, A Shared Home Place, the former SDLP leader, the late Seamus Mallon, just like Baker, expressed his own misgivings about a 50 per cent plus one border poll formula.

The person discreetly attempting to work up a package to refloat power-sharing is Julian Smith MP. In his seven months as Northern Ireland secretary, he and then Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney devised an agreement that ended three years of deadlock at Stormont in January 2020. And then Boris Johnson sacked him. Smith is very close to Rishi Sunak and is trusted by him. While the Northern Secretary, Heaton-Harris and his colleagues do the public work, Smith beavers away behind the scenes.

The offer, the best available deal, incorporating what might be doable in Westminster and in Brussels is likely to be made public before Christmas. When it emerges, Jeffrey Donaldson and his DUP party will have a decision to make. He pointedly stated at his recent party conference that he is a devolutionist at heart and believes the case for Northern Ireland’s constitutional position within the United Kingdom is best made when power-sharing at Stormont is fully functional.

The British government recently blurred several lines when it committed to increasing its contribution by many millions of pounds to a GAA stadium in west Belfast, named after Roger Casement, as part of the plans for the UEFA Euro 2028 soccer championship. The modulating of Sinn Féin, as it tunes up for a run at power south of the border, is another instructive lesson in the requirements of pragmatism.

Last week, Jeffrey Donaldson got a highly-charged preview of the fate that might await the DUP if it decides to contest the next British general election as the party that kept Stormont closed. During BBC 1 television’s Question Time programme, Donaldson and the Alliance Party’s Sorcha Eastwood were among the contributors.

She challenged him in the Lagan Valley constituency Westminster elections in 2019. He retained his seat by a 6,499-vote majority but his vote fell by 16.4 per cent and her numbers increased by 17.7 per cent. She is now lined up to run against him again. She caused him visible discomfort in their BBC exchanges. 

Like Mary McAleese, Sorcha Eastwood is a former pupil of Saint Dominic’s on the Falls Road in west Belfast. She is 38 and, if her Question Time performance is a valid indicator, she could have a long career ahead in public life. The Alliance Party leader, Naomi Long, told her party conference in Enniskillen last weekend that, helped by boundary changes, Sorcha Eastwood can oust Jeffrey Donaldson next time, in what is a first-past-the-post contest.

On this island and in the neighbouring one, there is a sense of tooling up for action and shifting plates.