The Stuttering Seventies
Civil Unrest in Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland entered a period of intense violence in the late 1960s and 1970s that became known as the Troubles. The conflict had deep roots in the partition of Ireland in 1921 and persistent discrimination against the Catholic and nationalist minority in the Northern Irish state. In 1968, inspired by civil rights movements elsewhere, Catholics began campaigning against discrimination in housing and voting. Clashes between protesters and police, and attacks by loyalist mobs, escalated rapidly.
British troops were deployed to Northern Ireland in August 1969, initially welcomed by some Catholics as protectors. The situation deteriorated rapidly. On 30 January 1972 — Bloody Sunday — British paratroopers shot dead 13 civilians taking part in a civil rights march in Derry (with a 14th dying later from wounds). The Saville Inquiry, reporting in 2010, found the killings unjustified and unjustifiable. The killings were a turning point: the Provisional IRA’s membership and support surged, and the violence intensified through the 1970s.
In March 1972, the British government suspended the Northern Ireland Parliament (Stormont) and introduced direct rule from Westminster — a measure intended as temporary that lasted, with brief interruptions, until 1998. The 1974 Sunningdale Agreement attempted a power-sharing executive between unionists and nationalists but collapsed after a loyalist workers’ strike within weeks. The conflict ground on, with bombing campaigns reaching the British mainland including Birmingham (1974) and the assassination of Lord Mountbatten (1979).
On Bloody Sunday (30 January 1972) British paratroopers killed 13 civilians at a civil rights march in Derry; a 14th died later. The 2010 Saville Inquiry concluded the killings were unjustified and unjustifiable. The event dramatically increased IRA recruitment and intensified the Troubles.
Sovereignty and Europe
Britain’s relationship with European integration was contentious throughout the 1970s. Harold Wilson’s Labour government had joined the European Economic Community (EEC) on 1 January 1973 — though in fact it was Edward Heath’s Conservative government that negotiated entry after two previous applications were vetoed by French President de Gaulle in 1963 and 1967.
The question of membership divided both major parties. In 1975, Harold Wilson’s Labour government held a referendum on whether to remain in the EEC — the first UK-wide referendum in history. The result was 67 per cent in favour of remaining, on a turnout of 64 per cent. However, the referendum did not settle the argument: Labour’s left wing remained hostile, and a minority of Conservatives were also sceptical of pooling sovereignty with European partners. The European question was a fault-line that ran through British politics for the rest of the century.
Opposition to EEC membership came from both left and right for different reasons. On the left, critics argued that the Common Market was a capitalist club that prevented Britain pursuing socialist economic policies — for example, it restricted state subsidies to industry. On the right, concerns focused on sovereignty — the idea that Parliament was the supreme source of law in Britain, and that pooling decision-making with European partners undermined this. The EEC also required Britain to accept the free movement of European workers, which some saw as a threat to British workers’ jobs and wages. These arguments — sovereignty, economics and migration — would resurface at every subsequent European debate over the following five decades.
Nationalism in Scotland and Wales
The discovery of North Sea oil in the early 1970s transformed the debate about Scottish independence. The Scottish National Party (SNP) used the slogan “It’s Scotland’s Oil” to argue that an independent Scotland could be economically self-sufficient. In the October 1974 general election, the SNP won 11 seats and more than 30 per cent of the Scottish vote. Plaid Cymru, the Welsh nationalist party, also grew, though from a smaller base and with a stronger cultural-linguistic focus than the SNP’s economic nationalism.
Both nationalist movements pushed the Labour government to consider devolution — transferring legislative powers to elected assemblies in Edinburgh and Cardiff. In March 1979, referendums were held in both Scotland and Wales. Scotland voted 52 per cent in favour of devolution, but a controversial amendment to the Scotland Act required 40 per cent of the entire eligible electorate to approve it — a threshold not reached. Wales voted against devolution by a large margin. The devolution question was shelved, to return more forcefully in the 1990s under Tony Blair.
The Winter of Discontent
The Labour government of James Callaghan ran into serious difficulties in the winter of 1978–1979. Attempting to hold public sector pay increases to 5 per cent to combat inflation, it faced a wave of industrial action. The Winter of Discontent saw lorry drivers, refuse collectors, gravediggers and public sector workers walk out. Images of uncollected rubbish piling up in Leicester Square and reports of the dead left unburied damaged public faith in the unions and in Labour’s ability to manage the economy.
The political consequences were severe. Margaret Thatcher’s Conservatives campaigned on a poster showing a long dole queue with the slogan “Labour Isn’t Working.” In March 1979 the Callaghan government lost a vote of no confidence by a single vote — partly because the SNP withdrew support after the failed devolution referendum. In the May 1979 general election, Thatcher won a majority of 43 seats. The Winter of Discontent had made her victory possible and gave her a mandate for fundamental economic reform.
The Winter of Discontent (1978–79) began when the Callaghan government’s 5 per cent pay cap provoked strikes by lorry drivers, refuse collectors, gravediggers and public sector workers. The resulting chaos destroyed Labour’s reputation for managing industrial relations and contributed directly to Thatcher’s general election victory in May 1979.
On 28 March 1979, James Callaghan’s government became the first UK government in 55 years to lose a vote of no confidence. The vote was 311 to 310 — a margin of one. The SNP’s 11 MPs voted against the government in protest at the failure of Scottish devolution. Some historians have described the vote as a paradox: nationalist MPs who wanted Scottish self-determination helped bring down the government most likely to offer it, installing Thatcher, who would oppose devolution for the next 18 years. The episode illustrates how the “Stuttering Seventies” were a decade of multiple, overlapping political crises destabilising the post-war settlement.