Editing Airey Neave (section)

==Assassination==
{{main|Assassination of Airey Neave}}
[[File:Airey Neave memorial plaque.jpg|thumb|right|Memorial plaque to Airey Neave at his alma mater, [[Merton College, Oxford]]]]
[[File:Airey Neave Memorial Window at Fryerning Church, Fryerning, Essex.JPG|thumb|right|upright|Memorial stained glass window to Airey Neave in [[Fryerning]] parish church, Essex]]
Airey Neave was critically wounded on 30 March 1979 when a [[car bomb]] fitted with a tilt-switch exploded under his [[Vauxhall Cavalier#Mark I (1975–1981)|Vauxhall Cavalier]]<ref>{{cite news | url=https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2009/mar/31/2 | location=London | work=The Guardian | title=From the archive: Airey Neave assassinated | first1=David | last1=Pallister | first2=Simon | last2=Hoggart | date=31 March 2009 | access-date=16 December 2016 | archive-date=27 August 2018 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180827120853/https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2009/mar/31/2 | url-status=live }}</ref> at 14:59 as he drove out of the [[Palace of Westminster]] car park.<ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2014/mar/31/airey-neave-mp-assassination-bomb| title=From the archive, 31 March 1979: Car bomb kills MP Airey Neave| date=31 March 2014| access-date=3 September 2023| work=The Guardian}}</ref> He lost both legs in the explosion and died of his wounds at [[Westminster Hospital]] an hour after being rescued from the wrecked car. He was 63.

The [[Irish National Liberation Army]] (INLA) afterwards claimed responsibility for the assassination. Neave had been pressing within Conservative Party circles and in Parliament throughout [[the Troubles]] for the [[British Government]] to abandon its strategy of containment (including "[[Ulsterisation]]") of [[Irish republican paramilitarism]] within [[Northern Ireland]], and switch to one of pursuing its military defeat.  It is believed that this is what led to his being targeted.<ref>Interview with [[Norman Tebbit]], 'The Victoria Derbyshire Programme', [[British Broadcasting Corporation]], 21 March 2017.</ref>

Following his death, Conservative leader [[Margaret Thatcher]] said of Neave:

{{quote|He was one of freedom's warriors. No one knew of the great man he was, except those nearest to him. He was staunch, brave, true, strong; but he was very gentle and kind and loyal. It's a rare combination of qualities. There's no one else who can quite fill them. I, and so many other people, owe so much to him and now we must carry on for the things he fought for and not let the people who got him triumph.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Wharton|first1=Ken|title=Wasted Years, Wasted Lives Volume 2: The British Army in Northern Ireland 1978–79|date=19 August 2014|publisher=Helion and Company|isbn=978-1909982178|page=164}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Margaret Thatcher speaking to the press immediately after the assassination of Airey Neave|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAgMR_gC9IY|via=YouTube|publisher=iconic|date=8 November 2010|access-date=4 February 2016|archive-date=12 August 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150812102542/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAgMR_gC9IY|url-status=live}}</ref>}}

Labour Prime Minister [[James Callaghan]] said: "No effort will be spared to bring the murderers to justice and to rid the United Kingdom of the scourge of terrorism."<ref name="BBCnews">{{cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/march/30/newsid_2783000/2783877.stm|title=BBC ON THIS DAY – 30 – 1979: Car bomb kills Airey Neave|date=30 March 1979|access-date=14 October 2007|archive-date=7 March 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080307131310/http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/march/30/newsid_2783000/2783877.stm|url-status=live}}</ref>

The INLA issued a statement regarding the murder in the August 1979 edition of ''[[The Starry Plough (magazine)|The Starry Plough]]'':<ref>{{cite book |author1=Holland, Jack  |author2=McDonald, Henry | title = INLA Deadly Divisions | publisher = Poolbeg | year = 1996 | pages = 221 | isbn = 1-85371-263-9}}</ref>

{{quote|In March, retired terrorist and supporter of capital punishment, Airey Neave, got a taste of his own medicine when an INLA unit pulled off the operation of the decade and blew him to bits inside the 'impregnable' Palace of Westminster. The nauseous [[Margaret Thatcher]] snivelled on television that he was an 'incalculable loss'—and so he was—to the British ruling class.}}

Neave's death came two days after [[1979 vote of no confidence in the Callaghan ministry|the vote of no confidence]] which brought down Callaghan's government and a few weeks before the general election, which brought about a Conservative victory and saw Thatcher come to power as Prime Minister. Neave's wife Diana, whom he married on 29 December 1942, was subsequently elevated to the [[House of Lords]] as [[Baroness Airey of Abingdon]].

Neave's biographer [[Paul Routledge]] met a member of the [[Irish Republican Socialist Party]] (the political wing of INLA) who was involved in the killing of Neave and who told Routledge that Neave "would have been very successful at that job [Northern Ireland Secretary]. He would have brought the armed struggle to its knees".<ref>Routledge, p. 360.</ref>

As a result of Neave's assassination the INLA was declared illegal across the whole of the United Kingdom on 2 July 1979.<ref>{{cite book |author1= Wharton, Ken  | title = Wasted Years Wasted Lives: British Army in Northern Ireland 1978–79 v. 2 | publisher = Helion & Company | year = 2014 | pages = 214 | isbn = 978-1909982178}}</ref>

Neave's killing has been the subject of conspiracy theories.<ref name='kelly' /> [[Enoch Powell]] claimed that his death was the result of a British-American conspiracy to secure a united Irish state that would be a part of NATO.<ref>Dillon, Martin. ''The Dirty War''. Random House, 2012. [https://books.google.com/books?id=er3HfXL7CKQC&pg=PA278&dq=airey+neave+assassination+conspiracy&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjnrqPg7vOKAxWyMlkFHWnbNnYQ6AF6BAgEEAI#v=onepage&q=airey%20neave%20assassination%20conspiracy&f=false Page 279].</ref><ref name='kelly'>Kelly, Stephen. [https://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2019/0328/1039118-the-life-and-death-of-british-spy-turned-politician-airey-neave/ The life and death of British spy turned politician Airey Neave]. RTE. 28 March 2019.</ref>