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Mr. David Winnick (Walsall, North): I have always taken the view that more important than decommissioning was the political decision by the IRA that it could not achieve what it had set out to achieve--a united Ireland--through violence and terror. To me, that was the most crucial decision of all. I hope that there will be no reversal by the IRA.
Decommissioning is important. It is important to bring about in Northern Ireland a society in which arms are not in the possession of paramilitaries of any kind, be they
republicans or loyalists. The IRA statement is to be much welcomed; it is a step forward. Since the IRA ceasefire, Sinn Fein has said that it cannot speak for the IRA. Of course, we know that there is a close link between IRA and Sinn Fein, but IRA has spoken clearly. Whatever one might say about that organisation--I have never been reluctant to condemn its violence, as hon. Members will know--when it says that it will do something, it normally does so. So I have confidence that the IRA statement is genuine and that the IRA is willing go along the path that it has outlined. That is why I welcome the order.Reference has been made to the fact that the IRA has not given up its basic objective. However, have we not always argued in this place that it is perfectly legitimate in Northern Ireland to campaign for a unitary state? People in Northern Ireland have as much right to do that as those who argue that Northern Ireland should be part of the United Kingdom. However, we have said that it is wrong to try to bring about a united Ireland through terror and violence. Parliament has been unanimous about that for more than 30 years. Despite all our differences on domestic issues, we have been unanimous that we would not give in to terror and violence, and we have not done so. That fact should always be borne in mind.
In a bitter and negative speech, the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson) demonstrated that, like his party, he is wholly opposed to the Belfast agreement. He is perfectly entitled to hold that view. However, when we listen to him, to the leader of his party, the hon. Member for North Antrim (Rev. Ian Paisley) and to the hon. and learned Member for North Down (Mr. McCartney), we should bear in mind that they do not want the implementation of the agreement. They were against it from the beginning. They do not want an all-inclusive government in Northern Ireland; they believe that to be wrong and inappropriate.
However, we--the vast majority of Members--believe that, given the traditions of Northern Ireland, the best and most effective means for good government is to bring the two communities together. That is what the Belfast agreement is about. I want to see an end not only to the terror and violence, but to punishment beatings--to which my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Derbyshire (Mr. Barnes) referred--whether carried out by republicans or loyalists. Such beatings are unacceptable on the mainland; they should be unacceptable in Northern Ireland. I hope there will be a decrease in, and then an end to, those beatings, which demonstrate such brutality and indifference to the rule of law.
I conclude my brief remarks by pointing out that, undoubtedly, a huge majority in Northern Ireland was for the Belfast agreement. If people on the mainland had had a vote on the Good Friday agreement--if there had been a referendum in this part of the United Kingdom--there would have been an even larger majority for its implementation than there was in the Irish Republic. That is the way forward in Northern Ireland. I hope that that will lead to a guaranteed peace, and that violence and terror will come to an end so that people in Northern Ireland can live the same sort of life as those of us on the mainland--a life without the fear of being killed or tortured. It is because I believe that the Belfast agreement is the way to bring that about that I hope that it will be implemented, and that the situation in Northern Ireland will be very different from that which has prevailed during the past 30 years.
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Mr. Robert McCartney (North Down): It has been said that there is a very fine line between blind optimism and complete foolishness. Much of what has been said in support of the proposed order verges on the latter.
The hon. Member for Falkirk, East (Mr. Connarty) made a quite unprovoked and personal attack on the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson). We have heard suggestions that an overwhelming majority of people, particularly in the pro-Union community, voted for the agreement. It is true that, in the referendum, there was, perhaps, a slight balance in the Unionist community in favour of the Belfast agreement. What brought that about? It was brought about by pledges given by the Prime Minister in his own handwriting that certain things would occur. One of those things was that decommissioning would have to be accomplished before representatives of Sinn Fein entered into an Executive.
Decommissioning has a long history. Each position on decommissioning that has been assumed by British Governments has been resiled from. Initially, under paragraph 10 of the joint declaration of December 1993, the representatives of terror were not to be permitted even into negotiations unless they had undertaken permanently to give up violence and to engage in the process of democracy.
The Conservative Government then took up the further position that, until there was an actual handover of weaponry or a proportion of weaponry--the so-called Washington three principle--there would be no prospect of Sinn Fein and other terrorist groups being allowed into negotiations. That position was resiled from.
We then had a promise that, if Sinn Fein were allowed into the negotiations--the previous Secretary of State for Northern Ireland repeated this ad nauseam--there would be a twin-track process and that, on the day on which a political agreement was reached and when that train arrived in the station, a train would also arrive with IRA weaponry. The Belfast agreement was reached and it was subsequently approved in a referendum, but not one single round of ammunition or one single ounce of Semtex was removed. However, as I have already said, prior to the referendum, it was suggested--indeed, it was promised and pledged by the Prime Minister--that decommissioning would occur. That pledge has been broken.
Then we had a seismic shift in July of last year and, currently, we have what is described as the great breakthrough--a new seismic shift. That does not amount to a hill of beans. The very first paragraph of the IRA statement makes it absolutely clear that there will be no lasting peace until its objective of a united Ireland is achieved. That is the first and most basic prior condition in this so-called IRA statement.
The second paragraph makes it patently clear that the Belfast agreement is considered to be only what the IRA and Sinn Fein have always claimed it to be--a transitional phase en route to Irish unity. That is Sinn Fein's phrase; it is not a Unionist phrase. It is Sinn Fein's description of the agreement. The second paragraph of this magical IRA statement makes exactly the same point. If the Belfast agreement is implemented in full according to IRA specifications, it can provide the political context in an enduring process--the so-called peace process--in which the causes of conflict can be removed and the potential
for the end of the conflict provided. The IRA recognises the agreement for what it is--a transitional phase en route to Irish unity.To what does the agreement, as a confidence-building measure, amount? The IRA will select, by location and contents, a number of its dumps--perhaps three--to make available to the two international inspectors, but those dumps will never be removed from its control. The dumps to be inspected will almost certainly represent only a tiny fraction of the IRA's total armoury, which will remain at all times immediately available.
The IRA goes on to say that if the British Government facilitate its demands, it will consider alternative modalities to those already laid out in the schemes that General de Chastelain was to supervise. At every point in the IRA statement there is a conditional clause. The fundamental condition is that, as long as the process continues to take the IRA irreversibly en route to Irish unity, its guns will remain silent. They will not be used, but they will not be destroyed or dispensed with. Why not? As long as the political process delivers the objectives for which the guns have been used, they will remain silent, but as soon as the process ceases to provide that irreversible thrust towards Irish unity, the guns will be available.
It has been suggested that people are cynical. I have lived all my life--64 years--in Northern Ireland. My son is married to a Catholic; I have full cousins who are Catholics; I have employed Catholics and I have been employed by Catholics and the Catholic Church. I have no objection to republicanism, although I do not share its views, or to nationalism, but I have a fundamental democratic objection to sharing power with gangsters, thugs and gunmen who threaten the principles of democracy with force. While the guns remain silent, their threat is none the less powerful.
A report in Dublin's Sunday Business Post said that the true basis of the IRA's agreement is that three or four weeks ago at Chequers, representatives of the IRA and Sinn Fein met the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister and made it clear that, unless their terms are accepted, there will be a renewed bombing campaign on the mainland during next year's elections.
I believe, as do many people in Northern Ireland, that the fundamental policy driving the whole peace process has little to do with political settlement in Northern Ireland; the imperative is to keep bombs off the mainland at any cost. That policy of appeasement will continue and will be leeched upon by the IRA. [Interruption.] I am sorry, but I do not share the optimism of other hon. Members. I sincerely wish that I could do so, but I think that it will prove to be misplaced. The order merely extends over years the time in which the representatives of terror can toy with the principles of democracy.
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