Tony Blair calls for ‘leadership’ as he reflects on 25 years since Good Friday Agreement

Former prime minister Tony Blair has called for a return to the political leadership that produced the Good Friday Agreement.

His comments come on the 25th anniversary of the historic compromise, which ended 30 years of violence in Northern Ireland.

US President Joe Biden and former president Bill Clinton are both expected to visit Belfast to mark the anniversary.

In an interview with Sky News, Mr Blair said: “The best thing for political leaders today is to remember that if they think peace has been a good thing, remember this one principle.

“It only came about because of leadership, it only came about because there were leaders prepared to be unpopular even with their own grassroots or part of it, and it only came about because there were leaders with the creativity and the imagination to say whatever the obstacles, we’re going to find a way through and they found it.”

His Irish counterpart, former taoiseach Bertie Ahern, recalled: “We were coming from a position where we knew that if we were to mess up, if we were to blow the opportunity, which we could have and maybe nearly did several times, it was back to people dying again.”

Three decades of violence had claimed more than 3,500 lives when IRA and loyalist ceasefires facilitated peace talks.

Three years later, with hopes of breakthrough fading, the two prime ministers engaged with parties in a three-day negotiation.

In the small hours of Good Friday, president Clinton intervened, calling the party leaders from the White House.

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It was late afternoon when the president’s peace envoy and peace talks chairman, senator George Mitchell, broke the historic news.

“I am pleased to announce that the two governments and political parties of Northern Ireland have reached agreement,” he said.

Nationalist leader John Hume had brought Sinn Fein to the table and David Trimble persuaded his Unionist party to compromise.

His widow Daphne Trimble said: “He knew that it was a big leap into the dark, he was taking a step that had never been taken before, but it was one that he felt had to be taken.

“He knew that we needed an end to the conflict that we had had and this was the best deal that he could obtain.”

Asked how he could ever justify the violence that had taken place before that point, former Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams said: “Let’s not talk about that.

“The fact is it happened, it’s over, it’s finished, those who pursued armed actions from the republican point of view felt they had no alternative, we provided an alternative, they embraced that alternative, the IRA went away,” he added.

The fragile peace has largely held but the power sharing arrangement at the heart of the agreement has proven problematic.

Sharing power does not come naturally in a divided society and reconciliation is, in Tony Blair’s words, “the work of generations”.