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If we simply provided that any party or part of a party operating in Northern Ireland was exempt from controls on donations, a Northern Ireland constituency association of a United Kingdom-wide party could accept a foreign donation and pass it to its London headquarters. My hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Mr. Linton) alluded to that possibility during our consideration of the Bill earlier this year.
To guard against Northern Ireland parties acting as a conduit for foreign donations making their way to Great Britain, it has been necessary to create what has been called a fire wall between parties operating in Northern Ireland and those operating in the rest of the United Kingdom. The majority of the amendments in this group are primarily dedicated to that end. They provide for the existing register of political parties maintained by Companies House to be replaced by the new registers--one for parties contesting elections in Great Britain and one for those contesting elections in Northern Ireland. Any UK-wide party would need to be on both registers. The fire wall to which I referred is provided by amendment No. 128, which prevents a party on the Great Britain register from accepting a donation from a party on the Northern Ireland register.
The changes in the registration scheme also deal with what has been referred to as the Scottish Green party problem. Owing to the way in which the Registration of Political Parties Act 1998 operates, the Scottish Green party, which is separate from the Green party in England and Wales, has been unable to register. Under the new registration scheme, a party registered on the Great Britain register could confine its registration to one or two parts of Great Britain. Another party with a similar name could then register in the other part of Great Britain.
The circumstances in Northern Ireland have required this Parliament to accept less than entirely satisfactory solutions to complex problems. We appreciate that some people would have preferred other options. We have, as honestly and straightforwardly as we could, tried to provide laws that deal with the particular circumstances of the political funding of parties in Northern Ireland. Therefore, I commend the amendments to the House.
Mr. MacKay: You will have noted, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that there are amendments in my name and those of the Leader of the Opposition and of the right hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble), on behalf of the Ulster Unionists, on the amendment paper. We can outline our position simply and straightforwardly. Wherever possible, Northern Ireland should be treated exactly the same as the rest of the United Kingdom. It is part of the UK and the Belfast agreement, which we support, underpins that fact. So, for electoral purposes, it should be treated in the same way as the rest of the UK.
We would always need to be persuaded of any change from what is the law in Scotland, England and Wales. We are persuaded in respect of disclosure. As the Minister pointed out, and as the evidence submitted in Belfast confirms, there is a potential security danger in identifying
donors to certain political parties. Doing so might put those people at risk. While there is still a terrorist threat in Northern Ireland and there is still violence, it is important that full disclosure, which we would normally prefer, does not apply to Northern Ireland.We see no reason for foreign donations to be allowed in Northern Ireland when all the main political parties in the House have agreed--following the Neill recommendations--that they are no longer appropriate. As the Minister knows, the Conservative party stated clearly, ahead of Neill, that it would no longer accept donations from overseas. We believe passionately that that approach should be adopted in the rest of the United Kingdom, including by all the Northern Ireland parties. With the greatest respect to the Minister, he said nothing in his opening remarks to persuade me or my colleagues that we should take a different view.
I regret to reach the conclusion that members of the Northern Ireland Office have put pressure on the Home Office to ensure that exemptions are available for Northern Ireland political parties. They have done so as yet another sop to Sinn Fein-IRA. Make no mistake about it, the sole reason for treating Northern Ireland differently is so that Sinn Fein-IRA and others can receive dirty money from the United States of America. I believe that that is wrong.
Mr. Kevin McNamara (Hull, North): Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. MacKay: I will when I have finished my point, because the hon. Gentleman knows a lot about this money.
I believe strongly that Sinn Fein should be treated in exactly the same way as every other party in the United Kingdom. It claims to be now a non-violent party, and I hope that that is true and that it will fully implement the Belfast agreement, which it is not doing at the moment. If it wishes to be considered by the House and other observers as part of the body politic and as a proper political party in the United Kingdom, it should have the same rules applied to it as apply to all the other parties in the House.
Mr. McNamara: The right hon. Gentleman referred to dirty money. To whom is he applying his remarks? Is he suggesting that they apply to the SDLP and also to the other nationalist parties that are represented in the House and that have obtained funds from the United States? He must be careful about the terms that he uses and about the implications that they have for the United States Administration. The United States has been most careful and scrupulous under both Republican and Democrat Administrations to ensure that no money to support violence comes from the United States.
Mr. MacKay: If the hon. Gentleman really believes that there is no money flowing out of the United States to support paramilitaries--both republican and so-called loyalist--he is a less close observer of the scene than he claims. There is absolutely no doubt about it; it is beyond refutation. Successive Republican and Democrat American Governments have done their best to persuade fund raisers not to pass money on, but he, I and the House know that it happens. Money that comes from the United
States to Sinn Fein, the IRA, the Real IRA and various so-called loyalist paramilitary parties and their terrorist associates is, in my view, dirty money. I know that the overwhelming majority of American citizens, the American Government and the overwhelming majority of Members of Congress are deeply embarrassed and appalled that this money comes. Many of them have done valiant work to try to ensure that it is not channelled in that way.
Mr. McNamara: The right hon. Gentleman has not replied to the point that I made about moneys going to the SDLP and elsewhere. How does he define "dirty money"? He has used a very broad brush. He should be more specific, giving us examples of cases and so on. He is condemning not only political parties in Ireland, but the American Administration for failing in their duties.
Mr. MacKay: Clearly, the hon. Gentleman failed to listen. Perhaps if I spell out my reply again in more simple terms and a little more slowly, he might pick it up this time. I clearly said that I believe that money that flows from America to paramilitary organisations and their political associates--Sinn Fein, the so-called loyalist paramilitaries and others--is dirty, tainted money. It embarrasses the American Administration, the overwhelming majority of Congressmen and the overwhelming majority of the American public. I said that last time, and I have said it again. The hon. Gentleman is at last nodding, so finally I am getting through.
Mr. MacKay: It is a pity that the hon. Gentleman did not listen more attentively to what I said originally and to my reply. Anybody reading Hansard will see clearly what I said.
Mr. Salmond: Will the right hon. Gentleman address specifically the point about the SDLP--I hope that I said that slowly enough for him--and say that he is not defining that as dirty money from the United States?
Mr. MacKay: I am happy to do so. I never mentioned the SDLP and I specifically defined those whom we were discussing. Everybody knows who those are. Everybody is aware that dirty money comes, particularly from the east coast of America, through to paramilitary and related parties. That money is bad money. By agreeing to the Bill tonight, we will encourage that money to flow--
Mr. John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington): Is the right hon. Gentleman saying that any donation to Sinn Fein is dirty money?
Mr. MacKay: When the IRA has been committing awful atrocities in this country, any donation to Sinn Fein is most certainly dirty money. I am delighted to respond to the hon. Gentleman. I could not make that clearer. I thought that I had made it clear right from the beginning.
I was responding to the Minister and asking him to reconsider and understand why we believe that parties in Northern Ireland should be treated in exactly the same way as parties elsewhere in the United Kingdom.
I cannot but believe that the measure is another sop--another appeasement of republicans and so-called loyalist paramilitary groups. It is a huge mistake. As has been seen in the past, the more we give, the more they take. That process has not built confidence in the Belfast agreement, which we supported. If we go ahead tonight and treat Northern Ireland differently, the great majority of people in Northern Ireland will again feel that they have been let down and are being treated differently.
A further comfort measure and a sop will have been given to the men of violence. That is harmful to the process that the Minister and I very much wish to move forward. He should consider again tonight whether it is wise to treat Northern Ireland differently. We strongly believe that it is not.
I shall deal briefly with the funding of referendums. We believe that the same should apply as applies to political parties. Referendums will take place from time to time--inevitably, in Northern Ireland, on the border. That used to be called the border poll. We believe that money should not flow in from abroad for that referendum. That would be a great mistake.
The same applies to United Kingdom-wide referendums, which will have as much impact in Northern Ireland as elsewhere. Neill has been clear that, for referendums, it would be wrong for overseas money to be used. We believe that there should be consistency.
I end as I started, by saying that Northern Ireland should be treated in the same way as the rest of the United Kingdom. Those of us, including the Minister and me, who support the Belfast agreement and passionately want the process to work would do a favour to that process if we treated all the parties in Northern Ireland in the same way as the rest of the United Kingdom. To do otherwise would further undermine the process.
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