What If Gordon Banks Had Played, Part 23

Caesar: The ides of March are come.
Soothsayer: Ay, Caesar; but not gone.

15th March 1980, 7.00 am, Buckingham Palace.

“The Prime Minister, your Majesty,” Sir David Checketts announced, ushering Powell into the room and closing the door gently behind him. The King sat in an armchair, pensively looking through the window over the palace gardens.

“Your Majesty,” Powell gave a deep bow.

“Prime Minister,” King George gave a strained smile, the wringing of his hands betraying his stress.

“I have come to tender my resignation,” Powell said.

“So I understand. It is...um...obviously a great loss. You've done me...erm...sterling service over the past years, notwithstanding the obvious recent difficulties. Given the difficult circumstances one can, well, quite understandable, yes?”

“Sir.”

“Awful business. Quite awful. I quite appreciate your position, it must be very difficult, I've been talking about it all with Uncle Louis — nothing confidential of course — he's explained it all. Awful business. Very sorry you've got to go... Would you care for a cup of tea or anything else? Buttered teacake? I'm sure I could have someone rustle up some breakfast or somesuch...”

“That will not be necessary, sir.”

“Uncle Louis was saying there were some... chaps willing to step in, keep a strong hand at the till. They seemed like good good men, Michael was one of them. You know Michael? Used to be a goon?”

Powell stared at the monarch in baffled incomprehension. The King wrung his hands and chewed on his bottom lip. “I understand,” Powell said eventually, “that it would be following precedent for me to offer you informal advice upon who to call as my replacement.”

The gave a relieved smile. “Yes, yes...that would...ah...be helpful.”

“It is my advice that Lord Howe should be asked to form a government.” Powell's face was drawn, and the words sounded hollow. He stared pointedly at the King. “As Your Majesty will undoubtedly be aware, my advice upon this point is that of a normal subject, not the binding advice of a Prime Minister to his monarch.” Powell continued to stare, the King blinked at him, his brow crumpled in thought.

“Thank you, Mr Powell. I suppose you have things to do, places to go?”

“My diary is unusually empty for today, sir.” The King forced a strained smile, and the now former Prime Minister gave a neat bow as he backed from the room.

From the Daily Express, 15th March 1980, Special Edition — “I Resign — Powell”

Prime Minister Enoch Powell today resigned as Prime Minister following a nine-day general strike aimed at removing the Conservative Government. Anti-Powell protests in central London have become open celebrations and across the country striking trade unionists are returning to work.

Lord Howe, the former Lord Chancellor, is expected to be summoned to the palace and asked to form a caretaker government upon his return later today from the USA, where he has been attending a conference on post-Powell Britain alongside other prominent anti-Powell politicians. Howe is expected to head a transitional government made up of all the major political parties. Likely members are thought to be former Labour leader Roy Jenkins, former Prime Minister Alec Douglas-Home, former Home Secretary Willie Whitelaw and Labour leader Merlyn Rees. It is unclear whether Tony Benn, the former Labour cabinet minister who has been Powell's most prominent domestic critic, will accept a role in the new government. John Lennon, the former Beatle who has played a prominent role the international campaign against Powell, has already ruled out accepting any role in a future government.

Jack Jones, the leader of the striking workers, welcomed Powell's resignation and, while voicing doubts about the choice of Howe as Prime Minister and the possible exclusion of Tony Benn, has indicated his willingness to give the new Government a chance. The strike has been called off and people across the country are returning to work. Full power supplies are expected to return during the next two days. Oil companies have already resumed deliveries to petrol stations but predict continuing shortages over coming days.

President Reagan, who has openly voiced his opposition to the Powell regime, welcomed the fall of the Powell Government and has pledged to support the new government with US funds. President Reagan has offered to station US peacekeeping troops in Ulster and the most troubled British cities during the transitional period. Experts are predicting that Ulster itself will be placed under the control of a US military governor while a permanent solution is sought.

The whereabouts of Enoch Powell himself are unclear; calls to his Eaton Square house are not being answered. Unconfirmed sources report that Powell has already left the country to seek refuge in a foreign country ahead of any inquiry into war crimes in Northern Ireland.

From “Brewers' Rogues, Villains and Eccentrics” by William Donaldson (Sterling, 2002)

Walker, Sir Walter (1919-1986) General and would-be putschist. General Sir Walter Walker was an outstanding military commander. He was repeatedly decorated for his service in Malay and Borneo and was a hero to the Ghurkas for opposing cuts in the 1960s, opposition which almost led to him being court martialed. From 1969 until 1972 he was commander-in-chief of NATO. After his retirement Walker's far right views kept him in the public eye. Walker was a hanger and a flogger, he favoured declaring Ulster a war zone and summarily shooting terrorist suspects. He was obsessed with the threat from Communism, trade unionism (“the communist Trojan horse in our midst, with its fellow travellers wriggling their maggoty way inside its belly”) and homosexuals (“who use the main sewer of the human body as a playground”). He was initially a staunch supporter of Powell, however by 1980 he had decided that only a military government could bring order to the United Kingdom.

On the morning of 15th March 1980, shortly after the announcement of Enoch Powell's resignation, Walker made an abortive attempt to launch a coup and install a military government. At nine o'clock Walker, at the head of a small group of retired soldiers, marched into the lobby of the BBC radio studios in London and declared he was placing it under military interdiction, much to the bemusement of soldiers already stationed there. Walker proceeded to make a broadcast to the nation, announcing that the army was taking control from the civilian government to protect the country against the imminent threat from Communism.

Walker seemed surprised to find that the rest of the army did not co-operate with his putsch, and surrendered the radio station without a fight when ordered to stand down by the chief-of-staff. Walker subsequently claimed that he was acting on behalf of a larger conspiracy to install a military government, headed by Lord Mountbatten, and that only the cowardice of his supposed co-conspirators, who he claimed included the founder of the SAS and a former head of MI6, prevented its success. He spent the rest of his life in a psychiatric hospital, although his letters still occasionally appeared in the Times, warning the public about the ever present twin threats of communism and homosexuality.

15th March 1980, 11.35am — Belfast

The Big Man stood on the platform, brandishing his microphone — although even with the noise of the baying mob it was hardly necessary. “This is our last chance,” the Rev Ian Paisley bellowed. “Tomorrow they will be letting the Americans in, sent by the Papist Kennedy and his rat's nest of Papishers in Boston to interfere in our God given right to our country, our country, bequested to us by the Almighty Lord Jesus Christ and won for us by good King Billy. Make no mistake, the Americans are not coming to help us, they are coming to sell us down the river! They will be a serpent thrust into our Eden! I say to the people of Ulster — resist! We have chased out the IRA murderers and we'll chase out the Americans as well, for we have the Almighty Lord on our side and in our hearts.”

15th March 1980, 4.24pm — Westminster

Airey Neave stepped briefly under the shower in his London flat and dressed quickly. He collected what clothes he needed and quickly packed a travelling bag. In the living room the phone was hanging off the hook. Neave collected a few papers and headed through the door and down to the steps into the hallway.

He squinted briefly through the peephole in the door — there were, thankfully, no journalists outside. Neave smiled to himself and let himself out of the building.

There was a man outside on a motorbike, with a silenced pistol.

“Got me,” Neave murmured as the bullet hit him in the chest and, as he fell to the floor, the expression upon his face was one not of surprise, but of expectations fulfilled. The sound of the bike speeding down the road seemed distant to Neave, as if coming from a distant, departing world.

From “An Unhappy Juncture: The Powell Government” by Anthony Selsdon (HarperCollins, 1988)

An Unhappy Juncture: The Powell Government

It would have been ironic had Powell passed the arriving Lord Howe as he travelled into exile on the afternoon of the 15h March. Sadly real life rarely provides such neat endings, Howe was flown into RAF Northolt by the US Air Force while Powell quietly flew to his Rhodesian exile from Heathrow airport, later to be followed by his wife and children. While his interest in his home country would never wane, it was to be the last time he set foot on British soil.

From the Times, 18th March 1980 “Howe appoints Transitional Authority”

Lord Howe yesterday announced the formation of a transitional authority to govern in the run up to democratic elections later in the year. Howe was asked to form a caretaker government by the King on Saturday, but has declined the title of Prime Minister. He will instead be known as the “Head of the Transitional Authority”.

The main portfolios have been divided between the leaders of the major parties. Labour leader Merlyn Rees has been made the transitional authority's leader within the House of Commons, holding the position of First Lord of the Treasury, a title normally held by the Prime Minister. The veteran MP and former Liberal leader, Jo Grimond, will be Foreign Secretary. The leader of the national unity coalition at the last election, Christopher Soames, has been appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer. The acting leader of the Conservative Party, Willie Whitelaw, has been made Secretary of State for the Environment. Quintin Hogg, the former Viscount Hailsham, is to be given a life peerage to serve as Lord Chancellor.

Former Labour leader Roy Jenkins to be Home Secretary in the transitional authority, and more importantly will be responsible for implementing the wide-ranging constitutional changes that are expected to be recommended by the Constitutional Convention announced by Lord Howe at the weekend. Despite criticising the delay in calling fresh elections Tony Benn, the leader of the Labour left, has accepted the Employment portfolio in the transitional government.

The position of Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has been left vacant, although it is understood that the US appointed military governor, General John Wickham Jr, will attend cabinet meetings dealing with the situation in Northern Ireland.

Meanwhile, remaining senior members of the Powell government have been placed under house arrest. Home Secretary Roy Jenkins explained this was for their own protection after the assassination of Airey Neave on Saturday, though he pointedly did not rule out bringing charges against ministers for crimes committed by the Powell government. The decision is also thought to be an attempt to prevent former ministers following Powell himself into exile.

From “The Office of the Prime Minister” by Peter Hennessy (Macmillan, 1999)

Lord Howe's brief premiership is unique amongst post-war leaders. Eager to underline the transitional and temporary nature of the administration Howe did not take the title of Prime Minister, instead presiding over the cabinet as Leader of the House of Lords and “Head of the Transitional Authority”. The possibility was raised of passing legislation to remove Howe's peerage, or allow Howe to speak in the Commons as a peer as was raised as a possibility should Halifax have succeeded Chamberlain in 1940. In the event Howe remained as premier in the Lords. Leaving aside the days between Home's accession to the premiership and the renunciation of his peerage, Howe was the first premier to sit in the Lords since Lord Salisbury. Like Salisbury, Howe did not take the position of First Lord of the Treasury, which was held by Merlyn Rees in combination with the position of Leader of the House of Commons.

The splitting of the positions of Prime Minister (for Howe was Prime Minister in all but name) and First Lord of the Treasury was a neat division of the top position between the leaders of the two main parties, though it did raise interesting constitutional questions, since the Ministers of the Crown Act 1937 assumed that the positions would always be combined. The question of salaries was avoided by both men taking the salary of a normal cabinet minister. As First Lord of the Treasury Merlyn Rees occupied 10 Downing Street while Lord Howe divided his time between Chequers and his own London home.

Howe's cabinet was equally unusual, of 19 members of the cabinet three were peers and six were drawn from outside Parliament entirely. There was no effort to find seats for the Ministers drawn from outside Parliament, given the temporary nature of the government, and in the event it had little effect. There was no organised opposition in the House of Commons and there was little primary legislation passed through the House. What changes were necessary continued to be passed through Orders in Council under the Terrorism Act.

Howe himself was determined that his administration would be seen as a caretaker authority, not a government in its own right, hence the refusal to take the title of Prime Minister or seek a Parliamentary seat and the appointment of ministers from outside Parliament. This was also a necessary move to gain the consent of some of the other parties within the coalition would were prepared to support Howe's premiership only on the condition that Howe's temporary status was made clear.

The Tories From “The Tories — the Conservative Party and the Nation State 1922-1998” by the Rt Hon Alan Clark (HarperCollins, 2000)

Howe's appointment was a watershed for the Conservative Party and immediately split the Parliamentary Party between those who were willing (and, indeed, allowed) to support Howe's coalition, and the rump Conservative Party who either objected to such an uneven coalition and those members of the Powell government whose support was repudiated by Howe.

While Howe's route to the premiership is sometimes characterised as a coup, his treatment of the Conservative Party was undoubtedly such. Enoch Powell left the country following his resignation as Prime Minister without resigning as Conservative Leader (although in fact a letter was posted to John Biggs-Davidson prior to his leaving the country). The bulk of the Parliamentary Conservative Party had been elected in the 1977 Powell landslide and was dominated by the right of the party. There was wide latent support for Powell, and Howe faced a difficult task in taming the party.

There was little doubt that Powell's departure was permanent and there was an immediate problem with finding a new leader for the Party. As a purely temporary leader Howe was not offered the role, nor would he have accepted it. Airey Neave, Powell's de facto deputy was dead and eventually Willie Whitelaw was installed as a caretaker leader without a vote of Conservative MPs. On the insistence of John Biggs-Davidson, the Chairman of the 1922 Committee, a formal leadership vote was held the next week. With the leaders of the right under house arrest no serious contender came forward, and Whitelaw defeated a token challenge from Nicholas Winterton, a former junior health minister, without difficulty. During his leadership of the Party Whitelaw would oversee the irrevocable splitting of the Conservative Party.

From “Modern British History 1945-1997” by Norman Lowe (MacMillan 1998)

Modern British History 1945-1997

The Howe administration faced a number of problems as it took power: Britain was recovering from a major general strike and much of the infrastructure of the country was at a standstill; the economy was in steep decline following the imposition of international sanctions; law and order had broken down in many of Britain's cities, which were dominated by rioting and looting; Catholic and Protestant remained at one another's necks in many northern cities and the situation in Northern Ireland remained critical. In the midst of this it was Howe's task to formulate new constitutional arrangements for Britain, to bring peace to the country, to nurse the economy back to health and to find a new place in the world for a country that had become an international pariah.

Part 24
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