................................................................................ ON THE RECORD PATRICK MAYHEW INTV RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE: 13.6.93 ................................................................................ JONATHAN DIMBLEBY: Secretary of State, given that finding a solution in Northern Ireland is appallingly difficult and given what the principle politicians were saying in that film about restarting talks, you must view the prospects of success in getting those talks restarted without any optimism at all? SIR PATRICK MAYHEW: I think that there are rational grounds
for hoping that the talks will start. I don't know whether one is to be optimistic or pessimistic but what I think really matters in that there should be a rational ground for an opinion you hold and I think that there is a rational ground for hoping that the talks will start. DIMBLEBY: Do you get any indication from Jim Molyneaux who was speaking extremely pessimistically there about last time round the Gulf got wider and going on to say that talks increase risks to human life. Do you get any indication from him that he's ready to come to talks? MAYHEW: Well I've had a private talk with Jim Molyneaux, as I hope to have with all the party leaders, quite recently and I think we have got at this stage to feel out with each of them how they may see the best way forward. Because don't forget, as the programme made clear, everybody signed up back in 1991 to this quest for a new beginning in relationships. Now I don't see that anybody has pulled back from that, they want a new beginning in relationships within Northern Ireland between the two parts of the island of Ireland and east and west. Anybody sensible must. DIMBLEBY: So is there a bit of posturing in what Molyneaux's saying there? MAYHEW: I wouldn't say that for a moment, certainly not. I know that he has felt gloomy that there has not been a conclusion to the talks which resulted in agreement. You see I take a much more cheerful attitude towards what was achieved in those talks. As your not terribly flattering actor said, they didn't result in achievement. But the whole atmosphere round that table you know, wasn't the doom laden sort of gloom that we've been watching, it really wasn't, it went on for six months and it resulted in a far greater understanding of peoples' hopes, suspicions, anxieties, motivations and it resulted also in something that had never happened for seventy years, Unionist politicians going to Dublin and Irish ministers coming to Stormont to talk and to steer. DIMBLEBY: Now if you're going to get these talks up and running again, I may presume that people have got to withdraw somewhat from their public statements and be ready to make compromises in that in public they're saying they won't make. MAYHEW: Well, of course, everybody has seen from the very beginning that they're never going to get each of their objectives without compromise. There's got to be compromise and everybody recognised that back when the talks process began and I draw very great strength not only from the inherent rightness of that idea but from the fact that it's shared so widely amongst the people I talk to on the streets. DIMBLEBY: Well let us see how realistic your hopes actually are. Let's take one or two of the key questions. The Unionists are saying unambiguously that they will not return to the table to talk until the Irish Government removes Clause Two and Three from the constitution, those Clauses which assert a territorial claim to the north. There's no prospect of the Irish Government doing that, is there? MAYHEW: Your programme carried the first major statement by Mr Spring, the new Foreign Minister, about Articles Two and Three. He said then that Articles Two and Three are not cast in bronze, that they are not unchangeable. There's no question but that everybody understands that Articles Two and Three in their present form which make a territorial claim to Northern Ireland and impose a constitutional imperative duty to establish control over those, that they're unhelpful to the process that we're all about. So don't let's be absolutely doom laden and say, no, no, that's never going to happen. DIMBLEBY: Would it be helpful then to getting the
Unionists back in, do you think, if the Irish Government were to make unequivocally clear that if the talks were successful then they would remove Articles Two and Three? MAYHEW: Oh yes indeed, if it were to be the case that a package satisfactory to all the participants including the Irish Governemnt were there and the Irish were to say now in those circumstances Articles Two and Three were removed, that would be immensely helpful, of course it would. But .... doubt if Mr Spring's actually said effectively that on the fifth of March. DIMBLEBY: But you believe it's the position of the Irish Government now although not stated in quite these terms that they would remove Two and Three if, all other things being equal, there were a settlement?? MAYHEW: You have to remember that Articles Two and Three can only be moved, can only be changed by a referendum because they're a constitutional change but Mr Spring said in March that in the event of a satisfactory package resulting from further talks, then Articles Two and Three would be, in his view, capable of being put to the parliament and then to the people in a referendum and that was a much more forward position then the Irish Government, I think, are on record as having adopted before. DIMBLEBY: And you believe, just in a word, you believe that is the Irish Government's position at this moment? MAYHEW: I have very great confidence in Mr Spring and I'm quite certain that Mr Spring speaks for the Irish Government. DIMBLEBY: Well in that case, the Unionists have got to recognise if you're going to get them around the table, that the Irish Government has moved and they can not expect any further move before the talks begin, can they? MAYHEW: Well I don't think I want to be drawn into that sort of forecast. What I do say is that Mr Spring has made that speech about the status of Articles Two and Three and that was something which was very much in peoples' minds during the talks last year and I think it represents a very hopeful position. DIMBLEBY: Okay and therefore you can't expect them to give much more before talks start? MAYHEW: I think it represents a very hopeful position and I'm in the business of emphasising hopefulness and not in the business of emphasising hopelessness. DIMBLEBY: My job is to try and assess whether your hope is realistic or not. Now let's go the second linch-pin position of the Unionists which is that any deal that they say they will sign up to has to be in such concrete as to make it inconceivable that down the road there could be the option of a united Ireland. They can't have that, can they? MAYHEW: I haven't heard anybody say that in terms that if in some distant future and rather hard to imagine eventuality, the majority of people in Northern Ireland said we do not any longer wish to be part of the United Kingdom, that the British Government should act as a colonial government in those hard to imagine and distant circumstances and say no, you're jolly well staying. I've never heard anybody actually say that. I quite agree with you that that is a inference in what some people, I think rather misguidedly, have said at certain times in the past, but we don't hold them to that. DIMBLEBY: Now what you're saying at the same time or implying at the same time, is that any settlement must include the provision for the national aspirations of the Nationalist community? MAYHEW: Well you see, the Nationalists want to see full recognition of the Nationalist identity in the way in which Northern Ireland is governed. That seems to me perfectly reasonable, I think most people think it's perfectly reasonable. They want to see a build-up of organisations in place that will produce fruitful results in those fields where it makes sense for north and south to co-operate, to work together. That's what the Nationalists want. The Unionists, they want to see new institutions in Northern Ireland with much more devolution. That seems to me to be very sensible as well, they want to see a replacement to the anglo-Irish agreement. Now all of them know that they can't achieve those things without compromise and without talking to each other. DIMBLEBY: Now I'll come in one second to the internal affairs but just to establish clearly where we are now. You believe that the Irish Government has behaved positively in respect to the constitution. You acknowledge that the Unionists cannot have a complete guarantee that there might not be down the road a united Ireland, exactly the terms that you very clearly expressed and if they aren't able to shift, then they won't be coming to the talks and you hope they will shift. MAYHEW: I hope we will see all the participants from last year's round talking to each other. Not necessarily in the same formation. I'm quite sure we've got to keep the three objectives in mind. Those three sets of relationships I've mentioned but I think we could quite easily find a different way of going about them. I mean that table that you showed on your mock-up, well actually it was a very much bigger table, a much wider table, many more people there and I don't personally think it was tremendously helpful but that's a personal opinion. DIMBLEBY: What, you would just like to have the leaders and yourself? MAYHEW: Well I think that we did very good business together when towards the end of the talks we got down to business first of all in sub-committee and then quite often with the leaders talking, the main participants. There are all sorts of ways of going about this, formation doesn't matter, what matters is dedication to the end objective. DIMBLEBY: Now in order to achieve that we've talked about the Unionist position viz-a-viz the constitution. Would it be helpful if the SDLP - the Nationalists - were to withdraw their proposal, that external powers - Dublin and maybe Brussels in some form or other as well - should have a real part in the internal affairs of the north? MAYHEW: Well very early on in the talks process a document appeared in the papers, it was leaked, which set out that kind of scheme and everybody knows about it. There's no question at all that that did constitute a major obstacle to Unionists and was one which attracted a tremendous amount of hostility straight away but I think contrary to the impression that your mock-up gave, the talks went on for something like six months after that and so one has to remember in this process that you're dealing with antagonisms whose roots go back not just for decades but for centuries and in any scheme of discussion, negotiation, you have got a very long time to go and you must expect people to have trade off positions. DIMBLEBY: I know, but the talks, as you say, went on however they did halt, it is right to presume, that SDLP proposal if it is not off the table, will mean that the talks will get nowhere very fast. MAYHEW: Well they halted you know for a very technical reason, they halted because the Irish Government, as was in entirely within their rights, insisted that there should be a further meeting between the two governments and under the Anglo Irish agreement. The Unionists, there'd been a gap extending from April to November, the Unionists had always made it clear that the talks could only proceed during a gap. DIMBLEBY: Now, but am I right to suppose that the talks will get nowhere fast if the SDLP insist on having that proposal on the table? MAYHEW: I don't think that that is anything that I've seen in any published accounts of people's views. I've read Dr. Paisley's accounts of what's got to be taken off the table completely, or what's got to be done. I don't think I've seen that. DIMBLEBY: So you're not asking the SDLP to take that off the table? MAYHEW: Well I'm not asking anybody at the moment to do anything except to talk to me, to see whether we can between us establish what each person's positions are, each party, the participants positions are, and then to see whether there isn't now a way of meeting the desire of the vast mass of people in Northern Ireland, and I don't doubt in the South as well, that the participants get back and start talking again. DIMBLEBY: Now, will it help that process of getting everyone around the table, if John Hume decided that it would be wiser not to continue his talks with Gerry Adams, the leader of Sinn Fein, the political arm of the IRA? MAYHEW: Well I expect you'd like me to tell John Hume over this programme on this programme, who he should talk to and who he shouldn't, I'm not going to do so. DIMBLEBY: No, I know. MAYHEW: What I've said previously is that it's up to him, anmd he's the best judge of whom he talks to, but you will have seen that it is a great difficulty for Unionists, that John Hume is talking to Sinn Fein at the moment, they have said so. Now whether that would persist or not I don't know.. DIMBLEBY: If it is a great difficulty to them it would obviously make it easier to get them round the table, given that they've got some other compromises to give them is John Hume were to desist. MAYHEW: I quite agree that that would follow, but their fear is that John Hume, if he is talking to Mr. Adams, would be at the table as a kind of proxy for Sinn Fein. That's not a view I hold myself at all, but that is their expressed view, so it is a particular soreness, as you rightly identify. DIMBLEBY: And although you would not seek in public to tell John Hume he shouldn't be speaking, but it would undoubtedly be helpful if he weren't. MAYHEW: I don't think I want to say anything more then I've said at the moment, except just this, that Sinn Fein themselves cannot possibly be at the table so long as they continue to justify the use of violence for political ends, which they do. And I endorse very warmly what Mr. Spring said about that, you can't reasonably be expected to sit down at a table, talk about political development and these great objectives of ours,with somebody who from time to time, either uses, or justifies the use of violence as it may suit them. DIMBLEBY: Conversely, if he were not to use, or at least not to justify the use of violence, he could expect a place at the table? MAYHEW: When he has shown that he means it for long enough to satisfy sceptical minds that it's for real, then you're in to a different state of affairs. DIMBLEBY: Now, if, for the purposes of argument, which you have to accept because you're a realist as well as a hopeful man, if for the purposes of argument, you can't persuade all to the table, do you have anything up you sleeve, are you able to take the initiative or are you merely an honest broker? MAYHEW: Well of course I'm able to take an initiative, the question is whether it's wise to take an initiative. For years
after year after year British governments have said now this the way that the affairs of Northern Ireland or of Ireland in distant days, should be run. Not
terribly encouraging precedents. What has to be achieived here is agreement, we're never going to get this overall settlement or accommodation of antagonisms unless it is by broad agreement. (interruption) I want to finish this because it's absolutely crucial. And that is why we have insisted that parties sit round the table and talk these things out. Of course it's taken months, of course as Jim Molyneaux said, philosophies have been exposed and all the rest. That is for the good. Had the British Government started by saying well after all this has gone on now for so long this is what we believe should happen, now do you sign up or not, everybody would have turned their guns inwards on the British government and said your scheme is wrong because of a,b,c and right up to z. DIMBLEBY: But to use a phrase which has some current life, you run the risk of being seen to hold office but without power. MAYHEW: I'm quite philisophical about everything that is said about the job that I do, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland are never able to deliver nice tidy programmes with nice timetables in which they're going to be achieved, but I don't mind about that one bit, what I want to do is to help these people in Northern Ireland, who are some of the finest people that we have in our whole Kingdom, to achieve for themselves the agreement without which there'll never be any success. DIMBLEBY: Now do all the participants that were there last time have to be round the table before talks can take place? MAYHEW: I think that's a very desirable thing, because we have... well for the reason that I've given, that we need to have wide agreement for anything that comes out of this. The fewer people there are round the table, the fewer vain strands of opinion that are represented, the less chance there is of that. DIMBLEBY: But that means in effect that each of those participants have a veto on whether or not these talks are going to take place. MAYHEW: It means that if we're going to get the right sort of agreement the right level of agreement, we've got to have most, if not all, strands of opinion represented, and I'm not saying there that every tiny strand of opinion's got to be represented at the table because that was not thought practical form, we want to see the whole lot there. DIMBLEBY: And it's not on your agenda at all, as it were, to call their bluff and say, I'm going to open talks on such and such a date and I'm going to put a document on the table, you're all welcome to turn up if you want to? MAYHEW: No it's not, but what I have done is to say this, that the time has come I believe, when the British Government should give some direction and focus to the way in which these discussions should resume, direction and focus so that they don't sit round and simply recite where they got to last time, that's not a blueprint, it's more like a sketch map, and I'll take it stage by stage and deal with circumstances as they arise. DIMBLEBY: A wing and a prayer. MAYHEW: I'll deal with circumstances as they arise and anybody who thinks that a Secretary of State for Northern Ireland should do something much more dogmatic hasn't learned the lessons of history. DIMBLEBY: Secretary of State, thank you very much for talking to us.