One of the factors which has unsettled Unionists over the past 30 years has been a suspicion that Britain governments, far from being committed to maintaining the Union, have actually wanted out of the North.

Republicans, on the other hand, have argued for most of the same period that British governments have been essentially unionist in their approach and that British security policy has been geared to defending the position of the North as part of the UK.
Papers released through the Bloody Sunday Inquiry under Lord Saville suggest that, in the early 1970s at least, the Republican perception was wrong, and that Unionist fears were well-founded.
At the beginning of 1972, British Prime Minister Edward Heath suggested to Stormont Premier Brian Faulkner that Nationalist aspirations might be met by Britain putting a 20-year time-limit on its commitment to retaining the North within the UK.
That is, Heath contemplated a united Ireland by 1992.
The documents reveal that this intervention was not capricious or atypical but reflected a general lack of commitment in British ruling circles to the Unionist cause, and a gathering impatience with Unionist strategy and demands. This was a tumultuous time, before the conflict had settled down into a long slog pockmarked by atrocity, and by laborious intermittent efforts to assemble a basis for negotiation.
As events hurtled forward through 1971 and into 1972, seemingly towards some apocalyptic consummation, fundamental beliefs or a lack of any fundamental belief tended readily to surface as British politicians faced questions from Ireland they hadn t anticipated being confronted with.
The Bloody Sunday march, on January 30th 1972, was a protest against internment, introduced the previous August 9th. Four days prior to the initial swoop on Nationalist areas, on August 5th, Faulkner had travelled to Downing Street to press for British backing of what, by any standards, was an extreme measure mass imprisonment without trial.
He met with Heath, Home Secretary Reginald Maudling, Foreign Secretary Sir Alec Douglas-Home and Defence Minister Lord Carrington. Also present were the Chief of the General Staff (CGS), Sir Michael Carver, the General Officer Commanding British troops in the North (GOC), Harry Tuzo and the Chief Constable of the RUC, Sir Graham Shillington.
The minutes record Carver and Tuzo flatly rejecting Shillington s view that the time for internment had now arrived .
In the end, the British ministers dealt with this sharp disagreement between their Army commanders and Mr. Faulkner s police chief by consenting to internment while insisting on a number of supposedly balancing measures, such as a ban on parades and the suspension of rifle clubs.
More significantly, the British side insisted that any formal statement issued from Stormont to justify internment should not suggest positive British support for the initiative: It would not be possible to state or imply that the GOC had advised internment; the formula should be... in the light of security advice and after consultation with the UK Government .
The fact that the Heath Government went along with an extreme policy intended to shore up Stormont was interpreted at the time reasonably, but, we now know, wrongly as evidence of solid British backing for the Ulster Unionist cause.
Two months later, on October 6th, Heath chaired a meeting of his cabinet s NI sub-committee attended by Maudling, Douglas Home, Carrington, Chancellor of the Exchequer Anthony Barber, Lord President of the Council William Whitelaw, Carver, Tuzo and cabinet secretary Sir Burke Trend. The one-item agenda had to do with another visit by Faulkner, scheduled for the following day.
Heath opened the discussion: "The crisis in Northern Ireland continued to overshadow the work of the government in many fields and threatened to jeopardise the success of economic and defence policies and the approach to Europe Probably, Mr Faulkner embodied the last prospect of maintaining an independent government at Stormont. If he fell, direct rule would be a virtual certainty and in the worst case the transfer to direct rule could take place in a situation in which the machinery of administration in Northern Ireland had virtually collapsed...
In general discussion the meeting recognised that it was essential to define the main object of the Government s Northern Ireland policy. If they were to maintain the status quo constitutionally, it was probable that the terrorist problem should be overcome as the first priority. On the other hand, if the object was to preserve the option of creating a united Ireland at some time in the future, it might be better to seek first for a political solution in which the minority were persuaded to participate in the government in Northern Ireland."
The minutes record general agreement that 'Mr Faulkner should be asked whether and under what conditions he would be prepared to include a Republican or Republicans in his Government .
It is clear from the discussion as a whole, as recorded, that the British cabinet felt no emotional or ideological ties to the North and saw the North s constitutional future as a matter of strategy rather than of principle.
Heath put it plainly to Faulkner the next day: They could no longer risk giving the impression of being borne along by events; the situation was now grave socially, economically and politically, and the British public was losing patience. The Westminster Government could not continue to support Stormont unless public opinion at home was behind it. Furthermore, the Government s policies in other fields were being jeopardised. The situation was thus one of danger for both Governments .
After a series of exchanges between Heath, Faulkner and Maudling, the minutes record that Heath noted that Mr. Faulkner was unwilling to meet the emergency by seeking to form a Government which was neutral on reunification, but attached value to Mr. Faulkner s proposed appointment of a Cabinet Minister or Ministers who would be widely regarded as representative of responsible minority opinion .
The tenor of this passage, and of the discussion generally, is of the British side pushing Faulkner to give ground on the constitutional question, and seeing the establishment of a power-sharing administration in the North as a possible step towards a united Ireland.
None of this is to suggest that the Heath Government was anti-partitionist; rather, it had no firm view one way or the other. British Ministers wanted a restoration of stability through the inclusion of Nationalists in government, and if that meant opening up a road towards a united Ireland, so be it.
During another Downing Street discussion on January 21st 1972, Maudling suggested a general agreement that there should be no (constitutional) change for a period of 20 years .

The same agnostic attitude towards the Border was more sharply evident in a query from Heath to Faulkner on February 4th (five days after Bloody Sunday) as to whether there would be support at Stormont for ceding the Bogside and Creggan to the Republic .
A seemingly verbatim account of this meeting, running to 20 foolscap pages, makes sobering reading for advocates of Unionism today.
The attendance comprised Heath, Maudling, Douglas-Home, Carrington, Burke Trend, Robert Armstrong (private secretary to the British PM), Faulkner, Faulkner s private secretary, Robert Ramsey, and the deputy secretary to the NI cabinet, Kenneth Bloomfield. The bulk of the meeting consisted of the British ministers demanding to know what concessions Faulkner proposed to make to Nationalists in order to re-establish stability, both with regard to the internal government of Northern Ireland and in terms of enhancing their hopes of a united Ireland.
Heath told the Unionist leader that, Opinion in Great Britain had reached the stage where a considerable element asked how much longer British forces could be exposed in such circumstances...If things went badly wrong (at a civil rights March in Newry two days later), there would be great pressure for a change of course . That, at any rate, was his view and indeed cabinet thinking.
Maudling interjected that a meeting of Tory back-benchers the previous day felt that they could not continue indefinitely on the present course.
Douglas-Home warned that if there was further trouble at Newry or elsewhere, people would demand some change of course .
Faulkner responded that he would like to know what was meant by change of course . There was surely no thought of pulling out the troops ?
He didn t get a straight answer. Instead, Heath observed that In Great Britain there was a great appreciation of the remarkable restraint of the Northern Ireland majority, and as yet no criticism of the forces. But there was a growing feeling that they could not go on indefinitely doing a horrible job with no sign of an improvement .
Heath then pressed Faulkner again as to Why would Unionists wish to hang on to Newry or (say) the Catholic areas of Londonderry? Douglas-Home asked about the possibility of population exchanges .
After a long and repetitive discussion about different forms of power-sharing, the British ministers returned to the question of a plebiscite on the border. Maudling, Carrington and Douglas-Home all pressed the point. If Nationalists could be persuaded to postpone hopes of a united Ireland for 20 years, would Unionists, in return, agree to include Republicans in government in the interim?
Carrington observed that 20 years deferment could seem a very long time from the Catholic point of view. It would mean no hope of a united Ireland in the lifetime of some of the present politicians.
The content and, even more so, the tone of these discussions make clear that the British cabinet of the day, replete as it was with Tory grandees and scions of the old aristocracy, felt no commitment to the Unionist cause and no necessary hostility to Nationalist aspirations. They contemplated the possible loss of Northern Ireland with easy equanimity.
There is no reason to believe that any subsequent administration, whatever their opportunist twists, tactical turns, policy confusions and cover-ups of crime, has had any different basic
view.