U.K. Offered to Pay Libya to Halt Support for IRA

It was in 1975 that then Prime Minister Harold Wilson sent a "personal message" to Colonel Gaddafi which, according to the Independent, indicated that Libya would receive payment in return for it calling a halt to its support for the Irish Republican Army (IRA). One particularly telling part of the message read:

I do not want to anticipate the results of the forthcoming talks, which we shall enter into in a truly constructive spirit, but it might be helpful nevertheless to mention two questions of particular importance to us. The first of these concerns Northern Ireland

The amount to be paid in return for the halting of that support, in addition to the resolution of other outstanding issues between the U.K. and Libya, such as what was called "residual discrimination against British goods", was £14 million. In current day values that figure equates to £500 million ($795 million). It appears that the offer remained a part of the discussions that took place between the U.K. and Libya until the end of the decade, by which time the Gaddafi regime had decided that a larger payment of £51 million was appropriate. That amount is worth £1.5 billion ($2.4 billion) today. The sum of money that was offered to the Libyans was mentioned again in a classified Foreign Office minute from January 1977. James Callaghan succeeded Harold Wilson as Prime Minister in 1976 but fears over the Libya-IRA connection remained. The Independent reports that in the same year as Mr Callaghan took office the U.K. authorities were looking to the Irish government in Dublin to bring some influence to bear over the Libyans. If the Libyan authorities had taken the U.K. government up on its offer they would have been required to sign an agreement which stated:

the Libyan Government, acknowledging that the majority of people have freely chosen to remain part of United Kingdom, confirm they will not offer political, moral or material support for the IRA or other organisations committing or supporting violence in Northern Ireland

As MSN reports two years prior to the "personal message" from the British PM to Tripoli, Claudia, a ship carrying arms and ammunition supplied by Libya, was intercepted off the coast of Ireland before its load could reach the hands of the IRA. It is unclear from reports what, if any, contact there was between Libya and the IRA in the early part of the 1980s but the BBC confirms that in 1986, angered by the U.K. assisting the U.S. in its bombing of Tripoli, Colonel Gaddafi made contact once again with the IRA. Before French authorities stopped another consignment of weaponry from Libya, that was aboard the ship the Eskund, from reaching the IRA three other consignments had already got through. As well as machine guns, ammunition and ground-to-air missiles the intercepted consignment contained Semtex, a Czech-made explosive that the IRA regularly used during its campaign for a united Ireland. Jason McCue is a lawyer negotiating with the Libyans on behalf of IRA bomb victims and he gave the following reaction to the news that the U.K. government had once sought to end the support of the Gaddafi regime for the IRA via a pay-off:

This all goes to support why our peace and reconciliation delegation is keen to meet and discuss matters in Tripoli. We believe that Anglo-Libyan relations should be flourishing but that certain human tragedies in the past have been overlooked and never reconciled

Conservative MP Daniel Kawczynski, chairman of the Libyan all-party group, was highly critical of the actions of the Labour government in the 1970s, saying:

We should never entice other states away from terrorism by offering them taxpayers' money

The Foreign Office is denying any knowledge of the offer having been made to the Libyans and the Ministry of Defence has stated that compensation forms no part of current talks with the Libyan authorities.