................................................................................
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.
|