British State Papers: The British prime minister's idea of an 'Ulster Dominion' was intended to reduce Britain's obligations to the barest minimum, writes Richard Bourke.

A top secret planning document drafted by the British prime minister in the immediate aftermath of the collapse of the Northern Ireland executive betrays the clear desire on Harold Wilson's part to confer some form of quasi-independence on the North.

In the days directly following the Ulster Workers' Council strike, Wilson was contending that the best means of realising that goal would be to negotiate dominion status for Northern Ireland.

In Wilson's opinion, this course represented the best means available for shedding responsibility for the North, especially given the kind of dominion which the prime minister had in mind.

The creation of an "Ulster Dominion" was intended to involve reducing Britain's obligations to the barest minimum, whilst maximising the protection which could be afforded to her interests.

Quoting a favourite phrase from his own 1971 memoir, Wilson insisted that Britain enjoyed "responsibility without power" in Northern Ireland.

But recently this powerlessness had been even more forcefully driven home by the decisiveness with which the Ulster Workers' Council had thwarted British policy.

Although Wilson believed that the British press had been generous in the wake of his government's defeat at the hands of the UWC, he feared that very soon the press would discover the stark fact that "the emperor had no clothes". But the dread of imminent exposure drove Wilson to plan his next move with keener deliberateness and resolution.

For instance, on Wilson's reckoning, it was most unlikely that dominion status for the North would carry with it automatic membership of the Commonwealth.

In fact, in all probability, Northern Ireland would not even be made an "associated" state.

That was because if Northern Ireland were to acquire this all-but-independent, "associated" status, Britain would still be implicated in her external relations.

And since this set of relations included such plausible eventualities as the North going to war with the Irish Republic, Britain could conceivably be drawn against her will into an Irish quagmire yet again, and so be trapped once more in the predicament of "responsibility without power".

Consequently, if Britain went for withdrawal, as she certainly would in the kind of "doomsday scenario" such as seemed to Wilson to be definitely on the horizon, it would have to be withdrawal on British terms. As Wilson presented these terms, they would include securing protection for the minority community in Northern Ireland in any new-formed Ulster Dominion.

Wilson envisaged Britain's financial subsidies gradually tapering off over a three- to five-year period. "After that they would be out on their own," he flatly stated.

But in the meantime, if the new regime began to backslide on agreed arrangements for the Catholic minority, "an immediate cut-off of money would follow".

On May 31st, 1974, Wilson's principal private secretary, Robert Armstrong, wrote to the prime minister thanking him for his ideas on dominion status for Ulster and offering to get the chief official at the cabinet office, John Hunt, to direct the government's top Northern Ireland policy committee towards prioritising Wilson's initiative.

A hand-written note from Wilson in the margins of Armstrong's letter adds the thought that more than mere direction might be necessary if his preferred option was to prevail.

Armstrong duly applied himself to the task. By June 7th the Northern Ireland Office was supplying him with assorted precedents in international law, ranging from the Dominion of New Zealand to the Irish Free State.

The example of Newfoundland, however, seemed most pertinent to current circumstances in the eyes of the NIO. After all, in 1948, following on from her own domestic crisis, Newfoundland had freely chosen to unite with her larger neighbour, the Dominion of Canada.

The analogy with Northern Ireland coming to terms with the South was at least striking, even if the parallel had no predictive value.

It was left to the British Embassy in the United States to pour cold water on the idea of an easy exit from Northern Ireland.

"The worst case, in American eyes, would be withdrawal, with or without a period of notice," insisted the US ambassador in a dispatch home to London from the embassy in Washington.

The ambassador, Mr Peter Ramsbotham, anticipated that the Americans would most likely follow the lead of the Irish Republic in castigating withdrawal "as a loss of will and a betrayal" on the part of Britain. As the months passed, this notional US verdict seems to have actually been accepted by the British government. "Above all, we must avoid a drift to civil war, defeat, and withdrawal," runs a memo to the prime minister in October.

However, the profound wish to quit the Northramified through government circles. It was only stymied by the thought of the catastrophe that would surely follow.

Yet if literal withdrawal was not a realistic option, a more subtle disengagement would certainly be possible if it was conducted within the framework of continuing direct rule. In the words of a secret cabinet office document on policy trends from December 3rd, 1974, if direct rule was to be necessary well into the foreseeable future, undoubtedly "it should be direct rule with a difference".