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Mr. Roy Beggs (East Antrim): To come back to reality, the hon. Gentleman must recognise that when Sinn Fein-IRA took part in the forum for peace and reconciliation in Dublin, surrounded by all its natural friends and associates within the nationalist community,
it was unable to reach a consensus. How realistic is it then to expect that consensus can be reached within Northern Ireland?
Mr. Soley: No one has claimed, least of all me, that this is a quick and easy solution to the problems of Northern Ireland. What I am saying--the alternative which is being suggested by the Unionists--is that it is very unrealistic to suggest that we can just go back to something that existed before the breakdown of the Northern Ireland political system. If we do not accept that--this is something which we must all address--we are saying that we are prepared to go back to the violence in Northern Ireland as it has been during the past 25 years. Frankly, we are not prepared to do that.
As I said earlier, the reason why the Labour and Tory parties are closer to each other on that issue than they are to either of the Unionist parties in the House, and the reason why the British and Irish Governments are so close, is that we are determined not to go back to that violence. After a period of benign neglect of Northern Ireland, which broke down in 1969, we lurched into a period of crisis management under successive Governments. Only when we had the Anglo-Irish Agreement did we have a policy which we began to follow through which has its logical consequence in the Bill. We now have policies which we are following jointly with the Irish Government and we are being realistic and saying that, if we do not want to go back to violence, if we do not want people in Northern Ireland to go back to killing each other, and we do not, we must get them talking to each other. The Government are attempting to get them talking to each other.
What we are suggesting, through the amendments, is that we do not fall into the trap of having a dispute about voting levels--70 or 60 per cent.--that we work on the basis of consensus and, that where it is necessary for decisions to be taken, they are taken, as is clearly set out in the Command Paper, by a majority of representatives from the republican and Unionist communities.
Rev. Ian Paisley:
I am interested in what the hon. Gentleman said about the Anglo-Irish Agreement. If the Anglo-Irish Agreement was such a wonderful thing, as he thinks it was, and was bringing us away from partition to paradise, why are we having this forum? We are told that the forum is to seek a way away from the Anglo-Irish Agreement, to get--I quote--a "broader" agreement under which people can work. If the agreement was such a wonderful panacea for our ills, why should we want anything broader?
Mr. Soley:
I do not want to rehearse whether the Anglo-Irish Agreement was wonderful. I do not claim that it was wonderful. I actually said that there was a change from a policy of crisis management to a policy whereby the British Government--Labour and Tory--have been prepared to work with the Irish Government in solving what is essentially a joint problem and in helping the two divided communities in Northern Ireland to come together in a political system that works. That is why we are here.
I know that Unionist members do not like that, but it is important to understand that, in my judgment, no British Government will ever go back to the old Stormont Government. They will never allow that to happen. If that is the case, unless the Unionists are prepared to live with
the idea of direct rule for ever, which is not exactly a desirable way of running Northern Ireland, we must come up with a workable solution in Northern Ireland.
A workable solution means compromise and talks between the Unionist and nationalist communities. The necessary structure is there, and the Government have today moved a considerable way towards it. I am urging the Secretary of State to move towards a more sophisticated version of it, despite the fact that I seem to be having a debate with the Unionist parties. Let us get rid of the voting aspect of the structure, which is divisive--even the Unionists are disputing the 70 per cent., 60 per cent. or 50 per cent. figure--and proceed by consensus. Where that does not happen, we should proceed on the basis of the support of a majority of the representatives of nationalists and a majority of the representatives of the Unionists. That is the way forward, and I strongly recommend it.
Rev. Ian Paisley:
The fact is that the House said that it would do away with Stormont and it did so--I was here when it happened. I said that what had existed before was a Sunday school picnic and that we would now experience the real thing. The then Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Sir E. Heath), said that I was speaking nonsense. He should look at what has happened since then: more people were killed in a week than were killed under 50 years of so-called Unionist misrule. Indeed, more people were killed in a few hours than were killed in the entire 50 years.
Parliament should consider what it has done in Northern Ireland. It says that it is working realistically, but was the Anglo-Irish Agreement brought about by consensus? It is ridiculous to hear in this place that the Anglo-Irish Agreement represents the first time that we escaped crisis management. In fact, it launched the greatest divide seen in Northern Ireland for many years. It polarised all parts of the community. Even the leader of the SDLP at the time said that the British Government must face down the Unionists. In other words, consensus means facing down the Unionists.
What of the fact that the great Anglo-Irish Agreement was found to be a complete failure? The Government then moved to the Downing street declaration, which also failed. It produced nothing. They then moved to the framework document and thought that the Unionists would sit down and negotiate themselves out of the United Kingdom and into a united Ireland. That failed, too. They then said that there would have to be all-party talks, but they failed. Finally, the Government turned back to the only thing to which a democracy can return--the granite rock of having an election and letting the people speak.
Some hon. Members do not like the fact that we are to have an election. They are going so to rig the elected body that it is not even to be allowed to prepare its own rules by the use of a vote. The first assembly voted on the rules; the second assembly voted on the rules; and the convention voted on the rules. I was on all those bodies and on every rules committee.
On important matters we could have a weighted majority. If people are afraid about some issue, I should be happy to say the measure will not be passed. If there
is great controversy, let us have a requirement for 75 per cent. approval. That is reasonable. I sit in the Strasbourg assembly where some votes involve a weighted majority. There is nothing undemocratic about those votes, but they relate to specific issues.
If hon. Members think that the elected representatives of Northern Ireland do not have enough wit to sit down and draw up a few rules and regulations, but that we need a long debate because those representatives are ignorant and must be guided by their parent's big cane and must be called into the back room by the Secretary of State, I have to tell them that that is not the way to work with people.
Parliament should let the Northern Ireland representatives draw up their own rules and get on with their business. For hon. Members to tell the people of Northern Ireland that they can have no votes but must reach consensus on everything is ridiculous and is no way to proceed. The House of Commons, which took it on itself to do away with the structures of government in Northern Ireland, has sown the wind and reaped the whirlwind.
Mr. McNamara:
My hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Mr. Soley) explained the nature of Northern Ireland society very well. It is a divided society, and, moreover, one in which large elements peacefully challenge the legitimacy of the very state itself, and its right to exist in its present form. We are trying to establish institutions that will reconcile the interests of those who look to Westminster for support and encouragement, and those who look to Dublin.
The problem is the lack of conviction in Northern Ireland society that legitimate ideas and aspirations--even from the foundation of the statelet--were being recognised by the Government and the institutions of the day. We as a society, and we as a House, are not working on the basis of a simple majority decision. We know what the result would be if there were simple majority decisions in Northern Ireland. That does not mean that the majority do not have rights and must be subservient to the minority, but it does mean that the rights and aspirations of the minority must also be recognised, and that the minority must not be overpowered by the majority.
In establishing the forum, we intended to create a body in which no one would feel under threat. People would be able to have their say on matters on which it was agreed that they should have a say, and would not feel that, under rules or procedures, they would be gagged or bullied or that decisions would be made that--even if they had no legislative, administrative or executive effect--nevertheless prejudiced their position. That is why Labour amendment No. 55--which I understand the Government may view sympathetically--is so important, although it is not the amendment that I would have tabled; I would have tabled an amendment more in line with the proposals of
my hon. Friends in the SDLP. I do not understand, and have yet to hear the Government explain coherently, why it is possible to refer to Command Paper 3232 in clause 2 but not in schedule 2.
The Labour amendment applies not only to the rules that will be drawn up by the forum as such but to the rules that the Secretary of State will introduce, under which the forum will first meet. It is therefore of the utmost importance for us to understand what "consensus" means in the amendment. Do the Government accept that, broadly, it is the same as the concept in paragraph 24 of the Command Paper? If so, we shall have framed regulations that will enable all the participants in the forum to express opinions without fear or favour and without the fear of bullying, and to know that the conclusions that result will be supported by the majority in each community. Such conclusions are likely to be accepted, carried through and supported by the whole community and not just by majorities in each section of it. That is the way to go forward.
We are not debating a British, Westminster situation. Everybody does not say, "Yes, we accept the rules of the game and the present nature of the state." It is a different situation altogether. I am worried by the suggestion that some rules may be changed by a majority of 75 per cent. voting for that. The reason for that concern is that if a grouping on either side--probably, although not necessarily, on the nationalist side--has sufficient numbers and decides, for whatever reason, to boycott the assembly, there will not be a block of 25 per cent. of the votes to prevent the evils that I spoke about earlier.
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