WI: Assassination of Margaret Thatcher by the I.R.A.

Would the "dries" perhaps try to step in and find somebody to oppose Heseltine in a leadership election? Or, alternatively, would he end up promising them that he wouldn't diverge too far from Thatcherism?
 

shiftygiant

Gone Fishin'
Would the "dries" perhaps try to step in and find somebody to oppose Heseltine in a leadership election? Or, alternatively, would he end up promising them that he wouldn't diverge too far from Thatcherism?
The problem is actually finding a dry who is viable enough to actually beat Heseltine in a straight out fight. Biffen and Howe come to mind as the most viable after Tebbit, however neither strike me as being able to pull it off.
 

Yeah, when the leadership of nuclear NATO nations is being killed off in massive, Gunpowder Plot-style bombings that tends to raise the temperature enough that anyone who has something to do with them will start nervously fingering their collars.
 
The question of course that is most interesting is how FitzGerald reacts, and I suspect that you would see him also coming down hard on the IRA, perhaps even moving to co-operation with the British Government on the border.

While there's no question that there would be a step up in operations, there's the issue with the suggestion raised above about the potential reintroduction of the death penalty, that would end any chance of extradition to the UK. Of course Anglo-Irish relations are in the toilet for a generation most likely.
 
While there's no question that there would be a step up in operations, there's the issue with the suggestion raised above about the potential reintroduction of the death penalty, that would end any chance of extradition to the UK. Of course Anglo-Irish relations are in the toilet for a generation most likely.

Didn't Ireland used to have death penalty for treason, political murders or murders against Garda members until the 1990s?
 
Didn't Ireland used to have death penalty for treason, political murders or murders against Garda members until the 1990s?

On the books yes, but not used since 1954. Kind of how the UK retained it till 1998, but in reality it was banned in 1976

As a 1986 Department of Foreign Affairs memo put it:
The death penalty in this country is largely a quaint throwback to the days when everyone else had one. As we no longer have a hangman, and almost the only country in the world in a position to train one is South Africa, there is no immediate prospect of execution in this jurisdiction. That being said, the abolition of the death penalty would represent a strong political minus in the eyes of certain right-wing groupings, including the gardaí, the RUC and the DUP. While the step would be practically meaningless, it could be used in a politically damaging way.

Again even with it on the books, extraditing an Irish citizen to the UK for a potential death penalty isn't going to happen, not without major political instability particularly if at the sametime you have the North in turmoil post the attack. For example during WW2 when the IRA was bombing the UK several were captured and sentenced to death, and Dev appealed against it, however that didn't stop him carrying out executions against IRA members in Ireland at the same time.
 
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