Basil Stanlake Brooke, 1st Viscount Brookeborough

Basil Stanlake Brooke, 1st Viscount Brookeborough (9 June 1888 – 18 August 1973), styled Sir Basil Brooke, 5th Baronet, between 1907 and 1952, and commonly referred to as Lord Brookeborough, was an Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) politician who served as the third Prime Minister of Northern Ireland from May 1943, until March 1963.

Lord Brookeborough had previously held several ministerial positions in the Government of Northern Ireland, and has been described as "perhaps the last Unionist leader to command respect, loyalty and affection across the social and political spectrum".

Equally well, he has also been described as one of the most hard-line anti-Catholic leaders of the UUP, and his legacy involves founding his own paramilitary group, which fed in to the reactivation of the Ulster Volunteers (UVF).

Early life

Basil Stanlake Brooke was born on 9 June 1888 at Colebrooke Park, his family's neo-Classical ancestral seat on (what was then) the several-thousand acre Colebrooke Estate, just outside Brookeborough, a village near Lisnaskea in County Fermanagh, Ireland. He was the eldest son of Sir Arthur Douglas Brooke, 4th Baronet, whom he succeeded as 5th Baronet when his father died in 1907. His mother was Gertrude Isabella Batson. He was a nephew of Field Marshal The 1st Viscount Alanbrooke, Chief of the Imperial General Staff during World War II, who was only five years his senior. His sister Sheelah married Sir Henry Mulholland, Speaker of the Stormont House of Commons and son of Lord Dunleath. He was educated for five years at St. George's School in Pau, France, and then at Winchester College (1901–05).

Military and paramilitary career

After graduating from the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, the young Sir Basil Brooke, 5th Bt, was commissioned into the Royal Fusiliers on 26 September 1908 as a second lieutenant. He transferred to the 10th Hussars in 1911. He was awarded the Military Cross and Croix de Guerre with palm for his service during the First World War.

Brooke was a very active Ulster Unionist Party member and ally of Edward Carson. He founded his own paramilitary group, Brooke's Fermanagh Vigilance, from men returning from the war front in 1918. Although the umbrella Ulster Volunteers (UVF) had been quiescent during the war, it was not defunct. It re-emerged strongly in 1920, subsuming groups like Brooke's.Townshend, "Easter 1916" p.181.

In 1920, having reached the rank of captain, Brooke left the British Army to farm the Colebrooke Estate, his family's country estate at Brookeborough in west Ulster, at which point he turned towards a career in politics.

Political career

Brooke had a very long political career. When he resigned the Premiership of Northern Ireland in March 1963, he was Northern Ireland's longest-serving prime minister, having held office for two months short of 20 years. He had also established a United Kingdom record by holding government office continuously for 33 years.

In 1921 Captain Brooke was elected to the Senate of Northern Ireland, but he resigned the following year to become Commandant of the Ulster Special Constabulary (USC) in their fight against the Irish Republican Army (IRA). He was created a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1921.

In 1929 he was elected to the House of Commons of Northern Ireland as Ulster Unionist Party MP for the Lisnaskea division of County Fermanagh. In the words of the ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', "his thin, wiry frame, with the inevitable cigarette in hand, and clipped, anglicised accent were to be a feature of Stormont for the next forty years."

Cabinet minister

Brooke became Minister of Agriculture in 1933. By virtue of this appointment, he also acquired the rank of Privy Councillor of Northern Ireland. He was thus known, from 1933 until his elevation to the peerage in 1952, as Captain The Right Honourable Sir Basil Brooke, 5th Baronet, Commander of the Order of the British Empire, Military Cross, Privy Council of Northern Ireland, Member of Parliament. From 1941 to 1943 he was Minister of Commerce.

Capt. Brooke addressed an Orange Institution rally at Newtownbutler on 12 July 1933, where he said:
In later years he expressed regret for the statement. However, on 19 March 1934 Brooke publicly repeated his feelings on the employment of Catholics – "I recommend people not to employ Roman Catholics, who are 99 per cent disloyal."

As Prime Minister of Northern Ireland

On 2 May 1943 he succeeded John M. Andrews as Prime Minister.

In 1952 Brookeborough, whilst Prime Minister, was raised to the peerage as Viscount Brookeborough, the title taken from the village named after the Brookes. Although a peer, he retained his seat in the House of Commons at Stormont and remained PM for another decade.

As the Northern Ireland economy began to de-industrialise in the mid-1950s, leading to high unemployment amongst the Protestant working classes, Brookeborough faced increasing disenchantment amongst UUP backbenchers for what was regarded as his indifferent and ineffectual approach to mounting economic problems. As this disenchantment grew, British civil servants and some members of the UUP combined to exert discreet and ultimately effective pressure on Brookeborough to resign to make way for Captain Terence O'Neill, who was Minister of Finance.

In 1959, Brooke expressed scepticism at the idea of Catholics joining the Ulster Unionist Party, saying

There is no use blinking the fact that political differences in Northern Ireland closely follow religious differences. It may not be impossible, but is certainly not easy for any person to discard the political conceptions, the influence and impressions acquired from religious and education instruction by those whose aims are openly declared to be an all-Ireland republic. The Unionist Party is dedicated to the resistance of those aims and its constitution and composition reflect that basic fact. There is no change in the fundamental character of the Unionist Party or in the loyalties it observes and preserves. If that is called intolerance I say at once it is not the fault of the Unionist party. If it is called inflexible then it shows that our principles are not elastic.

In 1963, his health having worsened, he resigned (at the age of 75) as Prime Minister. But he remained a member of the House of Commons of Northern Ireland until the 1969 general election, becoming the Father of the House in 1965. During his last years in the Parliament of Northern Ireland he publicly opposed the liberal policies of his successor Terence O'Neill, who actively sought to improve relationships with the Republic of Ireland, and who attempted to address some of the grievances of Catholics and grant many of the demands of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association

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