World Perspective : BRITAIN : Anglo-Irish Peace Links, Politics Become Tangled

With the British government suffering a political thrashing anew and the Irish government only now sorting out its own internal tumult, many analysts here are saying the already difficult search for peace in Northern Ireland may get even more complicated.

British Prime Minister John Major’s government suffered its latest disastrous defeat Thursday when it lost a “safe” Conservative seat in Parliament to the surging Labor Party--which, under new leader Tony Blair, is running far ahead of the Tories in polls.

In balloting in wealthy Dudley West, in the Midlands in central England, Labor won by a whopping 20,694 votes--the worst by-election drubbing for the Conservatives since World War II.

The Tory defeat was particularly painful because only 7,706 people voted for the ruling party. In the April, 1992, election, the Conservatives won 34,729 votes.

Labor’s vote held steady at 28,400.

If translated into national terms, the voting this week would leave the Conservative Party without a single parliamentary seat.

Meanwhile, in Dublin, a new government has finally been cobbled together in a coalition led by newly installed Prime Minister John Bruton, leader of the Fine Gael party, replacing the Fianna Fail administration of Albert Reynolds.

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Reynolds had led the Anglo-Irish move for talks with the maverick Sinn Fein, the political arm of the Irish Republican Army, and extremist Protestant paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland.

While Bruton’s Fine Gael has less close ties with Sinn Fein and has often viewed the group as an anti-democratic force, he has promised to continue the peace process; on Friday, Bruton met Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams and leading Northern Irish militant Republicans.

But even as the quest to end 25 years of violence continued, there were signs of just how tangled the peace process may become:

* On the one hand, in what was viewed as an encouraging development, Bruton reappointed Dick Spring, head of the Labor Party, as Ireland’s foreign secretary. Spring held that post under Reynolds and used it to promote peace talks on Northern Ireland.

* Without firm direction from London, though, the 900,000 Protestant Unionist majority in Northern Ireland has indicated it may be loath to reach any agreements with the 600,000 Catholic minority.

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In London, the Conservatives were holding their heads, trying to figure their course now. They have lost a series of by-elections caused by deaths of Tory incumbents, and the party has been racked by internal squabbling.

Analysts say Major’s grip on power has grown so tenuous that he cannot count on members of his party to stick with him in any vote--except perhaps in a vote of confidence, which could bring down the entire government and force premature national elections.

The defection of right-wing, anti-Europe Thatcherites is doubly harmful to the Tories because Major could be forced to rely on votes of Northern Ireland Unionist members of Parliament on critical issues; this would leave him in their political debt, and they might seek to be repaid in matters concerning the province.

Major gave no indication he is prepared to bow to right-wing pressure to change policies.

“I think some good can come out of it,” he declared of Thursday’s vote, “providing that people realize within the Conservative Party that we are all pulling in the same direction for the same cause at the same time and against the same opponent.”