Brief Biography:

The son of the late Henry Brooke, a former Conservative Home Secretary (1971-73), Peter Brooke was educated at Oxford and Harvard Business School and prior to entering politics worked as a businessman. His political career began in 1977 when he was first elected as a Conservative MP representing the constituency of the City of London and Westminster South (1977-97) and the Cities of London and Westminster (1997-2002). Brooke served in a number of junior ministerial positions before being appointed Chairman of the Conservative Party (1987-89) and then joined the cabinet in July 1989 as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (1989-92). With this appointment also came the role of co-chairman of the ministerial conference established under the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement (AIA). In many ways his immediate agenda was to be dominated by the AIA. He sought to try to resolve the political stalemate that had halted the progress in working towards the return of devolved power for Northern Ireland as set out in the AIA. The prospects for this however looked bleak for a variety of reasons. To begin with unionist politicians had made it clear that they would refuse to enter into negotiations until the British government had suspended the workings of the AIA. On the other hand the authorities in Dublin along with the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), then the largest nationalist party in Northern Ireland, were reluctant to see such a step taken.

In spite of the obvious difficulties Brooke pressed ahead with his efforts to create the conditions to allow for a new round of political negotiations to take place. Finally in April 1991 these got under way but given the legacy of mistrust and suspicion amongst all the parties little progress was made and they ended in July 1991 without any real breakthrough. Although judged a failure in one aspect they were to leave an important legacy in that their agenda was to be the one that was to form the basis of further negotiations in the late 1990s. For instance the Brooke talks of 1991 introduced the concept of talks concentrating on three sets of relationships: those within Northern Ireland; those between the two parts of Ireland; and those involving Britain and the Republic of Ireland.

Elsewhere he was also anxious to explore the possibilities that might arise in the circumstances of an Irish Republican Army (IRA) ceasefire. The most obvious example of this came in November 1990 when in a speech that infuriated unionist opinion he set out to state that the British government had 'no strategic or economic interest' in maintaining partition. Furthermore Brooke reiterated that the authorities in London would not stand in the way of Irish unity if it was pursued by 'peaceful' and 'constitutional' means. As a result Brooke was also prepared to authorise secret talks with the republican movement in order to try to discover if common ground could be found to initiate further discussions. These contacts were not revealed until a number of years later. In the meantime his reputation was to suffer on 17 January 1992 when he was persuaded to sing a song on the 'Late Late Show' on Radio Telefis Éireann (RTE) in Dublin just hours after the Teebane bombing in County Tyrone. His offer to resign was turned down by John Major, then British Prime Minister, but then following the 1992 general election Brooke was replaced as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. After a brief spell on the backbenches he returned to the cabinet in September 1992 as Secretary of State for National Heritage and remained in this post until July 1993. In July 1997 he was appointed Chairman of the Northern Ireland Affairs Select Committee and served until May 2001 when he stepped down as an MP.

Book References:

Elliott, Sydney. and Flackes, W.D. (1999), Northern Ireland: A Political Directory 1968-1999. Belfast: Blackstaff Press
Hennessey, Thomas. (2000), The Northern Ireland Peace Process: Ending the Troubles. London: Gill & Macmillan.
Ramsden, John (ed.) (2002), The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century British Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press

Web Sources:

Entry written by B.Lynn 29 March 2003]