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                                 ON THE RECORD 
                            DAVID TRIMBLE INTERVIEW      
 

RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1                                 DATE:  7.12.97 
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JOHN HUMPHRYS:                         This week Gerry Adams and some of his 
colleagues will meet the Prime Minister in Downing Street - the first 
time Sinn Fein has set foot in Number Ten since Michael Collins in 1921.  Since 
then three thousand people have died in The Troubles that have beset a 
divided Ireland.  The divisions remain between Nationalists and Unionists. 
Tony Blair will talk to Sinn Fein but the-Unionists will not talk to Sinn 
Fein, not at the bilaterals that are going on at the moment at any rate.  And 
unless and until they do, it's hard to see how this process can lead to a 
permanent peace. The leader of the Ulster Unionists, David Trimble, is in our 
Belfast studio. 
 
                                       Good afternoon Mr Trimble. 
 
DAVID TRIMBLE MP:                      Good day.   
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Tony Blair is right, is he not to see 
Gerry Adams because there is going to be no agreement, no lasting agreement 
unless and until, everybody talks to everybody else? 
 
TRIMBLE:                               Well let me first of all say that your 
introduction may have misled people.  We are actually engaged in the Inter 
Party Talks that are taking place in Belfast and we're seriously engaged, which 
I think is more than can be said for Sinn Fein.  They are there in the room 
with us and we hear what they say and they hear what we say.  
 
HUMPHRYS:                              You don't have exchanges with them? 
 
TRIMBLE:                               Well we don't have exchanges with a 
number of people in the interim but we are engaged in a talks process and we're 
seriously engaged, unlike them, because their involvement in the talks process 
is to float outlandish ideas.  By way of example, everybody else is there 
talking about the future administration of Northern Ireland, in terms of a 
devolved Assembly within the United Kingdom. Sinn Fein are putting forward 
proposals for County Councils in a united Ireland.  Nobody else is taking their 
proposals seriously, I think that's a point and I think you're paying far too 
much attention to the Sinn Fein's attempt to divert attention from their own 
failure in the talks and to other people. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                               Well-Well, what they-What they're 
saying - and we heard Martin McGuinness say it again on television this 
morning, is that he wants, he was pleading for, he said, face-to-face talks 
with you, the Ulster Unionists.  
 
TRIMBLE:                               He's merely trying to divert attention 
from the fact that Sinn Fein are not seriously engaged in these talks. This 
attempt to personalise things is rather childish.  
 
HUMPHRYS:                              What's personal about one Party talking 
to another?  That's the way things go on, isn't it? 
 
TRIMBLE:                               Well, we're engaged in talks with all 
the Parties.  
 
HUMPHRYS:                              No, no.  Yeah, but talking to each 
other, that's the point I'm trying to make and the point that he made this 
morning.  There is a difference.  
 
TRIMBLE:                               I don't see the difference that you're 
referring to. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Really? 
 
TRIMBLE:                               And I think this is smoke-screen and an 
attempt to divert attention.  We're engaged in the talks. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Yeah.  
 
TRIMBLE:                               We're engaged seriously in the talks and 
we're actually trying to get progress for everybody in Northern Ireland, which 
is not the case with regard to Sinn Fein and indeed the Prime Minister will 
know, even before he sees these people.   He will know from his own security 
assessment, that the security assessment that is coming to him at the moment, 
that the probability is that Sinn Fein will revert to violence in the New Year. 
That's the assessment he's receiving.  And he should remember when he meets 
them, that the people that he's meeting attempted to murder both his 
predecessors.  They attempted to murder John Major and they attempted to murder 
Margaret Thatcher and they came within feet of so doing.  
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Are you saying he shouldn't be meeting 
Mr Adams and Mr McGuinness this week?  
 
TRIMBLE:                               Well it's a matter for him to decide. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              What's your view? 
 
TRIMBLE:                               It's a matter for him to decide. If I 
was in his position I wouldn't have them into Downing Street and he knows my 
view on that. But it's for him to decide what he does and of course it's for 
him to abide the political consequences of it.  What I will say to him as well 
is, that when he meets them, what he should say to them, is that they have to 
keep the peace.  They've got to accept the democratic process and the Prime 
Minister should also say to them, that he - his job is - and it is - to uphold 
the democratically expressed views of the people of Northern Ireland.  
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Do you agree with one of your senior 
colleagues, Ken Maginnis, that Mo Mowlam, the Northern Ireland Secretary, wants 
to drive you out of these talks, out of this process?       
 
TRIMBLE:                               I have said that to her on a number of 
occasions.  We're astonished at the way in which she has conducted matters in 
Northern Ireland since the summer.  I mean I got the feeling that she was 
trying to drive us out of the talks in September.  I've got the feeling again 
in terms of the way in which she has constantly over the last few days been 
handing out concession after concession to Sinn Fein.  I mean Christmas has 
come early for Sinn Fein in terms of all the goodies that they're being 
offered.  And meanwhile any time we raise anything with the Government, with 
the Northern Ireland Office, we're spurned.   
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Why on earth would the Northern Ireland 
Secretary want to drive the biggest Party in Northern Ireland out of these 
talks?  
 
TRIMBLE:                               Because we are the upholders of the 
Consent Principle and as I remember back in July, when the Secretary of State 
made an attempt to water down the Consent Principle.  Now she was pulled into 
line by the Prime Minister quite sharply and I daresay if she tries it again he 
will do that again.  
 
HUMPHRYS:                              You mean she - you believe that she's 
working without the approval or the knowledge of the Prime Minister with what 
she's doing? 
 
TRIMBLE:                               Well I very much hope that she doesn't 
have the approval of the Prime Minister, for the way in which things are being 
conducted.  
 
HUMPHRYS:                              But, but- do you honestly believe that 
the Government, the British Government does not believe in the Principle of 
Consent for the way Northern Ireland's future is decided? 
                                                         
TRIMBLE:                               What?  No, what I-That's not what I said 
John.  What I said was that the Secretary of State attempted in July to water 
it down and I would suspect that given the opportunity she would try again to 
water it down.  The Government, however, is committed to the Consent Principle 
and we are there to ensure that they stick to it.  And the Secretary of State 
is not going to succeed in getting past the Consent Principle because that's 
why we're there.  
 
HUMPHRYS:                              You say we are there. You make the point 
that you are taking a full part in these talks. Is there anything that could 
drive you out of these talks?  
 
TRIMBLE:                               Oh yes there are, obviously.  There are 
things that we could not accept.  But, look, in terms of the talks process 
itself, the rules of procedure make it clear that nothing can be agreed without 
us and indeed were we to pull out of the talks, and that's not an 
impossibility, were we do to so, then this present talks process would be at an 
end.  Now we have to consider whether that is desirable and when we look at the 
consequences that would flow from a collapse of the talks process, that's an 
important thing.  Look, these were all part of the factors we took into account 
in the summer when we decided that we weren't going to allow circumstances to 
drive us out from the talks.  So, what you're talking about is not are there 
circumstances that could drive us out, you're saying are there circumstances 
that could bring these talks to an end?  And, of course, there are.  
 
HUMPHRYS:                              It may seem to some people, all the more 
odd, that you refuse to talk directly, directly - I emphasise the word - to 
Sinn Fein, when you have been talking, apparently very constructively to Mr 
Ahern, the Prime Minister of the Irish Republic and apparently making some 
progress.  
 
TRIMBLE:                               Well, again, I will correct your 
statement that we're not talking in the process with Sinn Fein.  
 
HUMPHRYS:                              No, no, I didn't say that. I said 
directly.  You're not holding face-to-face talks.  But my point is, that 
there's no point going over that ground again. 
 
TRIMBLE:                               Look, look, John, again on that, I'll 
correct you on that.  I mean we are there in the room, they're across, they're 
in the room with us. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                               Well.  Yes.  And, there are bilateral 
talks going-. 
 
TRIMBLE:                               You can't get more face-to-face than 
that. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Well, look, there are bilaterals..in 
case- 
 
TRIMBLE:                               Not going to .... them.  
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Well, Heaven forfend! 
 
                                       There are bilateral talks going on at 
the moment as everybody knows. You are not engaged between, yet there are no 
bilateral talks going on, between Sinn Fein and the Ulster Unionists - that is 
a matter of fact.  
 
TRIMBLE:                               Bilaterals are informal, they're not 
part of the process.       
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Alright. 
 
TRIMBLE:                               So let's leave that. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Well let's leave that. Let me go back to
the question of Bertie Ahern then.  And the question there is you seem to be -  
let me ask you directly - are you making good progress with Bertie Ahern?  Are 
those talks constructive, are you hearing the kinds of things from him, that 
you want to hear? 
 
TRIMBLE:                               Well, I met Bertie Ahern, we made the 
approach to him a few weeks ago, and I met him a couple of weeks ago in London 
and I was encouraged by those discussions. And we said at the time that we 
intended to explore the possibilities, and it was very much an exploratory 
discussion to explore further the possibilities that were there.  Since then of 
course we had the very foolish remarks of his Foreign Minister, and that was 
also a case where his Foreign Minister was out of line with his government 
policy and... 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              And he's disowned them. Bertie Ahern 
disowned them.  
 
TRIMBLE:                               And he moved very quickly to make it 
clear. So I mean, it's not unusual to find a situation where there are 
different views expressed within a government.   Now Mr Ahern is coming to 
Belfast tomorrow and he has the opportunity therefore tomorrow to remove the 
bad impression created by the remarks of his Foreign Minister, and I very much 
hope he will take that opportunity, because we do want something that will 
change the atmosphere and provide a more constructive basis to continue the 
discussions we were intending to have.  And I hope that he makes it possible. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Has he not already gone some way towards 
that.  Do you not welcome the fact that he has relinquished or said he is 
prepared, his government is prepared to relinquish Ireland's claim to the 
North, these Clauses Two and Three in the Irish Constitition? 
 
TRIMBLE:                               I'm not now - we need to see if that is 
in fact the case, and we've heard different messages from Dublin even within 
the last week on that subject, and what I said to Mr Ahern when we met him, is 
that the territorial claim must go, and must go in the way that it is clearly 
understood by the man in the street.  And it's not just a matter of getting rid 
of the territorial claim, it's also getitng rid of the desire to have 
fundamental change when what we want is stability, and that's the point I've 
put to him, whether the policy of the Irish state was conquest or stability.  
We hope that there will be stability and consequently a stable relationship but 
you can't have that if someone's constantly seeking change. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              And for your part are you prepared to 
accept that there should be some sort of body that has jurisdiction over both 
North and South, executive powers - call it what you will, including things 
perhaps, like Health and Education much more than has existed hitherto? 
 
TRIMBLE:                               No, is the simple answer to that.  We're 
prepared to have a relationship, we're prepared to have co-operation, but we're 
not going to have a body with jurisdiction over Northern Ireland which is 
outside the British political system.  Now, you just mentioned education and 
the Education Secretary of this government introduced proposals into parliament 
this last week with regard to educational standards, and there is a National 
Curriculum.  That National Curriculum applies to Northern Ireland, those 
standards will apply in Northern Ireland.  How can we have some body based or 
influenced by Dublin setting different standards or a different curriculum, or 
running a different educational system.  These things don't make sense. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Right. 
 
TRIMBLE:                               And I hope that when we get to discuss 
them people will see, accept the realities.  What I was encouraged about when 
we had the chat with Mr Ahern, is that he seemed to be realistic, and I hope 
that we get rid of all of this windy rhetoric and get down to realities. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Well, there we must end it I fear.  
David Trimble in Belfast, thanks very much indeed for joining us. 
 
 
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