................................................................................ ON THE RECORD JAMES MOLYNEAUX INTERVIEW RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE: 6.3.94 ................................................................................ JOHN HUMPHRYS: Well, let me put that question to James Molyneaux - have you been duped, are you out in the cold? JAMES MOLYNEAUX: No, I don't think so and I think when it comes to my annual meeting in a fortnight's time I'll be able to put my case in rather less than the hour-and-a-quarter it took Mr McCartney to put his case, then of course lawyers are paid to talk I suppose when it comes to the end of it. No question of conning, the declaration was the work of the two governments, it was prudent to allow it to run its course, first of all to achieve its first objective to protect the two governments in the face of international opinion. They have succeeded in doing that. The British government particularly now have international opinion on their side. It has failed in its second objective which quite frankly I never believed in any way, nor did I think anyone else, and that was to secure a cessation of violence, because, that was because mainly of the weakness - I would almost say the cowardice of Mr Adams who hadn't the courage to take the necessary decision. HUMPHRYS: But let's look at the damage that's been caused, putting it very crudely, to your cause as a result of all this. Gerry Adams has been turned into an international statesman of sorts whether you like it or not - London and Dublin are closer than ever - Ian Paisley's credibility because he stood out against it so strongly has been improved, and after all that you've really been given very little in return. MOLYNEAUX: Well, I don't think that Mr Adams stands very high when you read the sunday papers today for example, where the world opinion now is, and various papers have been quoted, for example in a certain paper which I won't mention but no doubt others have followed it, they've now seen through the whole deceit and shallowness of the Adams/Hume talks. They've seen that Mr Adams conned the Americans and the Americans feel very sore about that, so all of these things had to happen in the slightly longer term than just an immediate response and an immediate rejection of the declaration on the fifteenth of December. HUMPHRYS: But the question really was based on the fact that you have got nothing out of this have you? You and your position has not improved. NOLYNEAUX: One is always in a very strong position when other - the policies of others, I don't say have failed, when they have run their course, when they have not entirely achieved their objective, and there's no reason to believe that Her Majesty's government is not in any way sympathetic or responsive to our paper because the Prime Minister has had that paper for the past three months. He has expressed a great deal of interest in it. He did that when he saw the four party leaders at Stormont for example on the twenty-second of December, and I'm quite confident that now that the timing is exactly right, when Mr Adams' bluff has been called there will be - there has been in fact in the past week enormous interest in the paper which we've put forward, which contrary to what has been said by some rather unrepresentative spokesmen from the Conservative Party in your programme, is not a return to the old-fashioned Stormont with knobs on, not unadulterated majority rule or anything of the kind. It's something which is workable and practical and something which of necessity will eventually bring the governments round to it. HUMPHRYS: And you talk about the government's approach having run its course, Downing Street declaration and all that goes with it having run its course. Quite the opposite is true. Surely Mr Mayhew
doesn't think, Sir Patrick Mayhew doesn't think it's run its course, Dick Spring clearly doesn't think it's run its course, very much on course! MOLYNEAUX: Well, it was very interesting to listen to Mr - Sir Patrick Mayhew yesterday echoing words which I have been using for the past three years, that for example the three-stranded circus act isn't going to be a winner. "Therefore", says Sir Patrick, "we have to work by constructive bilateral discussions". Maybe to some extent covering some of the same ground, not all of it, but not in the order in which it appeared in that rigid format, so that the - both Mr Spring and Sir Patrick Mayhew were coming very much into line with what I've been saying not just for the past three months but over the past three years. HUMPHRYWS: You call it a circus but .. MOLYNEAUX: It was a circus. I was there. HUMPHRYS: Well, Sir Patrick Mayhew doesn't think it was. Dick Spring doesn't think it was. Dick Spring says he's absolutely confident that you'll return to that circus, you'll sit in the front row of it, if not be one of the ring-masters. NOLYNEAUX: Well, I'm sorry I haven't any intention of doing that and if the former participants were telling the truth they wouldn't do it either. If you could picture yourself in the.....which we had in Lancaster House, where we talked about political philosophy endlessly, we wasted time, the delegations were so remote in the grandeur of that establishment that we had to push little microphones to ensure that we were heard on the other side of the room. That's not really the way to do business. HUMPHRYS: So Dick Spring and Sir Patrick Mayhew, indeed the British government have got it quite wrong? MOLYNEAUX: Well they have got it wrong, but when you read what they said and listen to what they said, they're coming exactly into line with what I have been saying and what other sensible people have been saying over the past three years, and in fact you have the proof it, because this very week coming in tomorrow in fact, our delegation will be continuing its discussions on a bilateral basis with representatives of Her Majesty's government. We've been doing that you see, since the beginning of September. That's why our critics are so exasperated, so hysterical because they see that we are making real solid progress. HUMPHRYS: And as part of that real solid progress what you're saying in those bilateral talks to Mr Ancram or whoever it may be is "We want a national assembly, we want a Northern Ireland assembly" amongst other things? MOLYNEAUX: Not a national assembly. HUMPHRYS: A Northern Ireland Assembly. MOLYNEAUX: They can call it a council or call it what they like, but I mean.. HUMPHRYS: A council alright? MOLYNEAUX: Well, I have said, I have suggested that if they find that that is too big a step to take, and Mr Temple-Morris of course would regard it as too big a step because he's basically Republican in his outlook as far as Irish affairs are concerned, then they can scale down their ambitions, they can come down to something of an administrative body, they can call it administrative council if they like. If they're frightened of the old label of Stormont back, alright we're a reasonable lot. Now let's come down to some...to start with, a council or an assembly which will administer the law made by the sovereign paliament of the United Kingdom. HUMPHRYS: So what you're accepting is that you haven't got a cat in hell's chance of getting a Northern Ireland Assembly, that's dead isn't it, that's ... MOLYNEAUX: No, I'm sorry, I'm not saying anything of the kind. I was trying to ... BOTH TALKING AT ONCE MOLYNEAUX: .....the practical approach was, that if people find that it's too big a bite, to go back to something like the assembly which Jim Prior had, and it was a relatively modest body. Well alright, in the interests of progress let's scale the operation down to a common denominator level and then gradually build up on that. The great thing is to get something going to restore stability in Northern Ireland, to enable the eighty-five per cent of the people of Northern Ireland, what I call the greater number, to feel that there isn't a polticial vacuum, that there is a power of their representatives to address their grievances and that can be done without any disadvantage to the mere fifteen per cent who want to be in a United Ireland. HUMPHRYS: So your minimum demand then, if I can put it like that is that there be some sort of devolved power to local government in Northern Ireland? MOLYNEAUX: Well, I'm sorry, not local government necessarily, although that will have to come into the picture because no matter whether we have a continuation of direct rule in its present form, or whether we have an assembly, powers will ultimately have to be devolved down to the District Councils to deal with those matters which can be best remedied by councillors on the ground. But I'm not saying that it's only District Councils - I'm saying that if you feel, and those whom you are representing and those for whom you're now claiming to speak, if you're saying that it's too much to expect Dublin and the opinion at Westminster to swallow the idea of a modest regional assembly, alright, then have something slightly in between to fill what we used to call "the McCrory Gap (phon), namely, a body which will assist the Secretary of State to govern Northern Ireland more efficiently. That surely is not an outrageous demand. HUMPHRYS: Well, I'm certainly not claiming to speak for anybody. I'm trying to put a few questions to you one of which - or suggestions to you if you like - and one of those is that Dublin won't wear what you have just suggested. MOLYNEAUX: Well, yes, but then we don't go around asking foreign countries - sorry, correction, we didn't until Maastricht came in - we didn't normally go around asking foreign countries as how we're going to govern Yorkshire or Essex or Sussex, for instance. That's the kind of a new fashion. I'm not excluding the Irish interest because we have said repeatedly - even Mr. Paisley and I said in a letter to Mrs. Thatcher which we handed to her before she signed the fatal, fateful Anglo-Irish agreement - that if we were in power in a modest executive in Stormont we would immediately start discussions on matters of mutual interest with our Southern counterparts, and that offer still stands. The problem is that Dublin insists on having something like joint authority in position before we even get to a very modest assembly and that simply is not on in the minds of what I call the greater number of the people of Northern Ireland, Protestant and Catholic alike, amounting to eighty five per cent of the population. HUMPHRYS: Right - well, what makes you confident then that London will deliver that message that you've just delivered to Dublin, via us, and will give you what you want? MOLYNEAUX: Because it has always been accepted as a fall-back position to some high-wire act right back from the time of the Labour Government and once the Harold Wilson convention failed, I made a modest speech in the big debate on the Kilbrandon (phon) report which ran for a week, suggesting that we would start restoring accountable democracy to Northern Ireland by means of an administrative assembly and then build on that. That has always been recognised as a runner. Now the problem is that the Foreign Office/Northern Ireland Office always want to get us on to a high-wire act to make them feel important and, in doing that, they put the parties in Northern Ireland into political slit trenches from which they can't afterwards move. I'm simply saying: Let's get down to it in an assembly in which.. the whole body of which is the executive, where they will all be there, the constitutional parties as the electorate send them there, acquire trust and confidence in each other to administer the laws of the United Kingdom, and to redress the grievances of the eighty-five per cent of the electorate, yes, and the other fifteen per cent who don't want to be in the United Kingdom. HUMPHRYS: And you've said to Mr. Major: "We're not prepared any longer to stay in those slit trenches. We want to come out. We want this system", and he has said to you "Alright, Jim, you can have it". MOLYNEAUX: Well, we have put the paper to him - that was before he even signed the declaration. He expressed a great deal of interest in it. He recognises that there isn't anything else of a practical proposal lying around at the moment, so I'd be very much surprised if we get the negative thumbs down, as Mr. Temple-Morris was advocating - he's almost a lone voice by the way in the Conservative Party - was advocating the Prime Minister should do. HUMPHRYS: He was putting a particular view. You're getting a different impression from the Prime Minister himself though, are you? MOLYNEAUX: Well, the government itself always recognises, and always has recognised, that we have to move forward where it's possible, where it's practical and possible to achieve the art of the possible, and we're all convinced - and I'm quite convinced - that there is a way to do it. It's the point about Dublin, and this is the problem at the moment, that Dublin insists on having what used to be called "Strand Two", namely,
institution-like structures with the new body in place and agreed before they will authorise, if you please, (that's the word they used) authorise us to decide how we're going to administer the affairs of the people of Northern Ireland. HUMPHRYS: But the reason I put the question in those terms is that if Mr. Major hasn't actually promised you this, or indicated that you're going to get it in some pretty firm way, then you haven't got an awful lot to go back to your own people with and say "This is what I've achieved. This is what this party has achieved". MOLYNEAUX: Oh yes, we have achieved something of value to the people of the whole of the United Kingdom and the people of Northern Ireland regard themselves as parts of the United Kingdom, part of the United Kingdom, and that they're citizens of the United Kingdom. What they want to see is stability, not only in Northern Ireland, but in the United Kingdom in general. They share my view that it's not a terribly good idea to have General Elections once a year - that wouldn't do very much for the value of the pound, it wouldn't do much for political stability in the United Kingdom - I've always taken the view, and the bulk of the people of Northern Ireland share my view because they're hard-headed, practical people, that the General Election.. a General Election is the method of deciding who governs the United Kingdom, not opinion polls, and there is a very big difference, and we've taken the view as a parliamentary party right back, you'll remember, from the days of the Callaghan Government, that provided that Her Majesty's Government was acting in the best interests of the United Kingdom in general, and of Northern Ireland in particular, we would not terminate the life of the Parliament prematurely. That was the relationship with Callaghan, that is the relationship with Major. HUMPHRYS: Mr. Molyneaux, thank you very much. ...oooOooo...