Death
Airey Neave was killed on 30 March 1979, when a magnetic car bomb fitted with a ball bearing tilt switch exploded under his Vauxhall Cavalier at 2:58 p.m. as he drove out of the Palace of Westminster car park. Both of his legs were blown off and he died in hospital an hour after being freed from the wreckage. The Irish National Liberation Army (INLA), an Irish Republican organisation banned in the United Kingdom under anti-terrorism legislation, admitted responsibility for the killing.
Conservative leader Margaret Thatcher led tributes to Neave saying: "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." 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."
The INLA issued a statement regarding the killing in the August 1979 edition of The Starry Plough.
| “ | "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 just two days after the vote of no confidence which brought down James Callaghan's government and a few weeks before the 1979 general election which brought about a Conservative party victory and Margaret Thatcher came 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 . He would have brought the armed struggle to its knees".
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