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Mr. David Wilshire (Spelthorne): The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful and compelling case against the unjust arrangements before the Committee, and I agree with him. Does he agree that an even more significant point about the rag, tag and bobtail of thugs whom the mechanism will let in, is the fact that, because the system requires agreement by consent of everybody, the minority of terrorist apologists will have a veto over the 80 to 90 per cent. of properly democratically elected people?
Mr. Robinson: The hon. Gentleman's point is sound. Further, having jumped through all those hoops for the sake of these groups, it could well be that they would not be entitled to be part of the negotiating process under the rules that the Secretary of State has outlined. We would have distorted the democratic process to try to get a result that cannot be produced.
Dr. Joe Hendron (Belfast, West): I accept much of what the hon. Gentleman has said, and agree that there was broad support for the top three parties at the European election. The votes cast in that election for his party and for my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Foyle(Mr. Hume) make a high percentage, but the Government ignored that.
Mr. Robinson: Of course, if the electorate were to support them, those groups would be there. If the hon. Gentleman feels that it is important that they should be there, he can go out and canvass for them. He can go up and down the Falls road and Andersonstown saying, "Vote Progressive Unionist party or Ulster Democratic party." In a democratic society, that option is open to anyone who believes that those are the parties that should be in the talks process. Everyone has the option of supporting them.
At the end of any argument, a vote is taken by the people. The ballot box verdict must be the final judgment. If people cannot secure sufficient votes to get through the gateway into the process, they do not deserve to be there. They certainly do not deserve to be there on the argument that I think is at the back of the hon. Gentleman's mind--that they can cause destruction. As soon as one accepts that argument, one says that it is important to ensure that those who are prepared to kill have a place at the negotiating table. That only encourages more people to take up the gun and to place the bomb.
Mr. Robert McCartney (North Down):
Does the hon. Gentleman accept that I, as the leader of a minority party, endorse his sentiments about the undemocratic nature of the elections, and agree that there can be no basis for these strange electoral arrangements, other than the inclusion of parties that would otherwise be incapable of obtaining a mandate from any representative section of the people of Northern Ireland?
Mr. Robinson:
I am grateful to the hon. and learned Member. It says much for him that he is prepared to put the interests of democracy above his self-interest and that of people around him.
It cannot be argued that those who receive 81.6 per cent. of the vote should get the same number of representatives at the end of the process as those who receive 1.3 per cent. That does not stand up to argument. The party that topped the poll, with almost 30 per cent. of vote, is to get the same number of representatives as a party that got 0.33 per cent. of the vote. The Secretary of State cannot justify such an outcome. If that is to be the case, I hope that at the very least he will accept a clause that will allow some scaling in the system.
If that is the unfairness of the system, what will be its outcome? Again using the results of the European election, let us see who will be coming through the door to meet the Secretary of State in the talks. At No. 10, he will have the Natural Law party. This is a serious matter. He has provided the system. He wants to ensure that the top 10 parties in Northern Ireland will be at the negotiating table to decide the future of Northern Ireland, its relationship with the Irish Republic and all the issue that he believes are important.
The Secretary of State is providing a system which, on the last election results, would bring through the door the Natural Law party. It is important that we look at something of the parties that will be there. The Natural Law party believes in yogic flying. It believes that yogic flying produces bubbling bliss for the individual, creates maximum coherence in brain function--that might be useful around this place--and increases harmony and positivity in society, leading to reductions in crime and other negative trends. It is a phenomenon known as the Maharishi effect.
We as representatives of Northern Ireland will be spending 12 or perhaps 24 months with such people. If they are given the same amount of time as the rest of us, for at least one or two months we shall have to witness the Natural Law party yogic flying around the conference room, giving us the benefits of its proposals for the future of Northern Ireland. What will that do for the standing of the process with the delegates and the electorate? It will make the whole process a laughing stock.
The Secretary of State has not fully thought out the consequences of the proposal that he has placed before the Committee. It is undemocratic and fatally flawed. Its purpose was to bring in paramilitaries who could not get elected under any other process. It gives rise not only to such vexatious parties as the Natural Law party coming through the door but to an unwieldy conference table.
The proposal ensures that there will be 10 parties from Northern Ireland at the negotiating table. Those parties will be joined not only by Her Majesty's Government in strand 1 but by Her Majesty's Government and the Government of the Irish Republic in strand 2. So there will be 12 parties, each of which will have three representatives as negotiators, and we shall have 36 negotiators. Each of the negotiators for the political parties of Northern Ireland will have the support of three people, and the two Governments will have the support of five. So there will be 76 people around the negotiating table.
What sort of negotiations will take place in the United Nations atmosphere that the Secretary of State is creating? It just is not reasonable. It just would not work. It is clear that, before too long, the Secretary of State--or perhaps the Minister of State, who might understand it better because he has responsibility for sport--will have to set up a premier league. He will have to decide that the yogic fliers can fly elsewhere, and the serious politicians should be in a room to themselves.
The Secretary of State is creating further problems down the line for himself simply through the process in which he has indulged in this schedule. I ask him to consider the system more fully than he has, and either take out the regional list system in its entirety or do some serious scaling down to ensure that democracy is inserted into the process.
The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Sir Patrick Mayhew):
We have listened to a robust and fluent speech from the hon. Member for Belfast, East(Mr. Robinson), who denounced the proposals for a top-up system as creating a fundamentally unfair system. Of course it is possible on a formalistic view of a democratic system to mount a case in support of that. It is equally possible to mount a similarly argued case when, in reflection of particular political, social or historical circumstances, it is considered appropriate to have a system of a weighted majority.
During the discussions that took place over six months in 1992, we found that there was general consent that there should be a system of a weighted majority in any assembly that may come to be devolved as a consequence of an overall settlement. Therefore, while I acknowledge that the hon. Member for Belfast, East is entitled to make, in formal terms, the complaint that he has made, I meet it by saying that similar complaints could be made about any system of a weighted majority; yet all parties, his own included, acknowledged in 1992 that there was a place in Northern Ireland for a weighted majority.
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