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ON THE RECORD
RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE: 26.2.95
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JOHN HUMPHRYS: But first, Northern Ireland. The nine
Ulster Unionist MP's in the House of Commons have the power to bring down the
government. They haven't exercised that power because there's been a pact
between them and the Tories. Now there's no pact ... no deal, because the
Unionists believe they've been sold down the river with the framework document
on the future of Ulster. Willie Ross is one of the most senior Ulster Unionist
MP's. Many believe he will take over the leadership when James Molyneaux
retire.
JOHN HUMPRHYS: Mr Ross, good afternoon.
WILLIAM ROSS: Good afternoon.
HUMPHRYS: You've been talking very tough in the
past few days, the members of your party. But the truth is, the government has
actually called your bluff, and there isn't very much you can do about it, is
there?
ROSS: Well, first of all let me make it
perfectly plain that your initial remark was inaccurate. We do not have the
power to bring down this government. They still have an overall majority of
Conservatives in the House of Commons.
HUMPHRYS: That is true, but there are many
whipless MP's, if they vote against, you vote against, the government's in
trouble.
ROSS: Well, of course, that is correct yes,
but I mean we didn't bring that situation about, the government decided quite
clearly to bring an end to the general understanding which we had with them.
HUMPHRYS: But the main point that I was making
there, is that they had effectively called your bluff, they've said "we're
going to do this, you don't want us to do it, we're going to do it, and that's
that", and the truth is now, however much you may huff and puff about it, there
really isn't very much in reality you can do, is there?
ROSS: Well, the reality is of course that we
believe the government has been very sadly misled and many of the things which
it has put in the framework document, in fact I've been through it twice now,
and I can't see a single solitary Unionist thing within it. All that I see
within it is a very heavy pressure being put upon the Unionist politicians to
say yes we are going into a united Ireland, and quite frankly, Mr Humphrys, the
Unionist population of Northern Ireland is not so inclined, and neither am I.
HUMPHRYS: But you're not going to have a great
deal of choice when push comes to shove, are you, that's the point I'm trying
to make?
ROSS: But the Prime Minister has made it
perfectly plain time and time again that there is a three fold lock. He said
that the parties can say no, he said that the people of Northern Ireland can
say no in the referendum, he said that parliament can say so, and as far as my
understanding goes, at least two parties of Northern Ireland, ourselves and
the Democratic Unionist Party, have indicated that the document published on
Wednesday does not provide a sound basis for the future governments of Northern
Ireland.
HUMPHRYS: Are you going to say no to the
government this week, when you have a vote, and an opportunity to show what you
feel about them?
ROSS: Well, as it happens, two of my
colleagues were missing at the party meeting this week. We will have an
opportunity to discuss these matters on Wednesday evening, before the vote
takes place and during the debate, and after we've heard what the Prime
Minister has to say, and we will make a final decision at that point.
HUMPHRYS: Is it conceivable that you could vote
with a government whom you say has betrayed Ulster, betrayed your own party?
ROSS: I think that it would be very difficult
indeed for us to do that in these circumstances, but may I point out that this
vote is not about Northern Ireland, this particular motion has been put down by
the Labour Party, perhaps genuinely, perhaps just for political mischief, and
they are having a debate on Europe and how the government is handling it's
European policy. So no doubt the sceptics in the Conservative Party will make
their views clear as well.
HUMPHRYS: But what this vote will do is give you
an opportunity to help, to force a vote of confidence in the government. Is it
not inconceivable that you should turn down that opportunity, given what, you
have made it clear, you feel about the government?
ROSS: Well, our view of the government's
policy is perfectly plain, and the party leader Mr Molyneaux has made our view
perfectly plain, that we believe that so long as the government is pursuing a
policy which is helpful to the Union, we would not bring that government to an
end. Quite clearly we believe that this government is not pursuing such a
policy.
HUMPHRYS: So there's only one logical conclusion
to draw from that isn't there?
ROSS: Well, yes there is, I suppose, if you
want to put it that way, but sure we never know what might happen between now
and Wednesday, we don't know what the sceptics are going to do, if I was asked
to make a forecast I would say that the government is almost certain to win the
vote on Wednesday night because I have noticed what is being said by sceptics,
one or two sceptics in Great Britain, that it's quite clear that the oldest
political game in the world is being played, which as you only vote against
your own government when you are quite certain they're not going to lose.
HUMPHRYS: But you're making it quite clear that
they will not win with your help?
ROSS: Well, the reality is that there are nine
Ulster Unionists, whenever you double that to eighteen as we shift from one
side of the question to the other, then the government has made up it's mind
that it can dispense with eighteen votes on at least a number of questions
which will come before the House of Commons.
HUMPHRYS: Right, so you have made up your minds,
effectively and, as you say, there is going to be another meeting later this
week, but effectively, you've made up your minds.
ROSS: What I have said is that we will meet
and discuss it on Wednesday, as we will meet and discuss before any other such
decisions that might have to be made. You see, Mr Humphrys, the reality is
that the government has now managed to get them presenting a much more delicate
position than that which they occupied this day week, and I believe that as it
becomes apparent that the government is no longer stable, that there is a
certain amount of instability in the governments of the United Kingdom, that
that will have all sorts of shocks through society, and not least I would have
thought in the City of London, and given what you were talking about earlier
about the bank, the Investment Bank, I think that there is a series of problems
now arising from the government which might not have been foreseen a week ago.
HUMPHRYS: It sounds as though you have effectively
now written off the Conservative government.
ROSS: Oh, I never write off any Conservative
government, I have seen many changes and chopping about in government policy
over the years, I expect to see quite a few more in the coming weeks and
months.
HUMPHRYS: There's nowhere else you can go now, is
there, really, short of conspiring one way or the other to bring down this
government and hope that you might get some sort of better deal with the Labour
government. There really isn't very much else you can do now, is there?
ROSS: Well, the reality is that the Unionists'
case I believe is absolutely watertight. We've never properly understood, I
believe it will find increasing support in the House of Commons over the coming
weeks, and indeed I was very gratified by the attitude of many Conservative
back benchers whenever we explained our position and the reasons why we were
not happy with the framework documents.
HUMPHRYS: You say a watertight case, it may or may
not be a watertight case, but it's been rejected by the government, they've
made that absolutely plain.
ROSS: And they have also left the way out open
for everyone by saying that the parties can reject the framework document
which...unless you are saying the words which the Prime Minister uttered on
that issue are not worthy of consideration. Are we to believe that the Prime
Minister said that the parties could reject it and then he's going to turn
around and say: "Oh that's the first lock and I'm really not accepting that,
I'm going to go to the second lock, then I'm going to go to the third lock,
then we're going to have an election" and after the election could very well
find in the Northern Ireland Assembly a group of people who are going to say
well we're not going to operate this. I mean I think the whole thing has as
many prickles on it as a cactus.
HUMPHRYS: What is going to happen in truth, is
that you are going to get involved in talks with the government at a fairly
early stage aren't you. Now you will say we're talking about our own document,
our own proposals but Sir Patrick Mayhew has made it clear, he made it clear
again this morning that although you may, on the face of it, be talking about
that, about your proposals, that will be a cover for the framework document.
ROSS: Well if Sir Patrick Mayhew is saying
that I can only say to the people of the United Kingdom, that he is making one
of the most serious errors of judgement that it is possible for a senior
politician to make - that is not the position. When the Unionist Party goes to
talk to government about their proposals we will talk about our proposals and
about them alone. The Unionist Party Executive Committee meet on Friday, they
issued a statement repudiating any suggestion of taking part in discussions
based on the framework documents. We are bound by that and indeed the
parliamentary party has no difficulty at all in accepting that statement.
HUMPHRYS: But the framework document will be
sitting on that table won't it?
ROSS: Well we'll no doubt have a waste paper
basket close by.
HUMPHRYS: But if you throw that document into the
waste paper basket, where do you go from there? You see this is the problem,
you come across all the time isn't it. Your proposals have effectively been
rejected. The moment that framework document was published that was an end of
it, the government knew what your agenda was, knew what you wanted, said it
isn't good enough, this is our considered thought.
ROSS: Well the government has - we are told -
been considering these things for two years. Whenever I look at them I see a
long line extending back for over twenty years. In that period of time, we
have seen the Stormont Parliamentary system destroyed, we've seen changes in
the police, we have seen the UDR created and replaced, we have seen endless
political changes and constitutional changes, we have seen in 1985 under
Margaret Thatcher's deal with Dublin, the statement that oh Dublin was going to
make changes in Articles Two and Three, we're now being sold the same pig in a
poke again.
HUMPHRYS: But this is the whole point isn't it...
ROSS: Just wait a minute until I finish. At
the end of all these concessions to Irish Republicanism and Irish Nationalism
we see them still saying none of that is good enough, we're only interested in
an All Ireland republic and we don't give two hoots that where by far the
greater number of people in Northern Ireland are totally against a United
Ireland, voted against it consistently for fifty, sixty, seventy years. That
this doesn't count, does democracy, the will of the people count for nothing in
the United Kingdom anymore Mr Humphrys? - or, do we have a right to say no.
HUMPHRYS: But you see that is exactly the point I
made right at the start of this interview which is that the ratchet has been
tightened every single stage of the process over the past twenty-five years has
it not, and each time you the Ulster Unionists have lost, you've been flat
footed by successive governments.
ROSS: Well we have been overridden by
successive governments, that is true.
HUMPHRYS: Out-manoeuvred perhaps.
ROSS: That then calls in question, the
validity of the democratic process in the highest levels of government in the
United Kingdom and it is something that I think the people of the United
Kingdom should pay attention to and they should also give very careful
attention to what the Prime Minister was saying in Scotland this week, where he
in fact said that a devolution structure there would lead to separation, he is
now insisting on the similar devolution structure in Northern Ireland. And
don't forget that the people of Scotland, at one stage, did vote in favour of
devolution and the government ignored that.
HUMPHRYS: Well precisely. So what can you now do,
if you can't fight you have to deal.
ROSS: Well what do you mean we can't fight. I
mean I think that people who believe that the Unionists are just going to roll
over and go tamely into a United Ireland are living in a dream world. We have,
I think, quite a lot of friends in the House of Commons, I think there are
quite a lot of people in the Conservative Party who are deeply disturbed by
this document and I have no doubt that as time passes between now and the next
election that we will see a steady shift of opinion in our direction.
HUMPHRYS: But you see I don't see that parades of
anger down the Shankill Road, I don't see demonstrations outside Belfast City
Hall, I don't see the Protestant people of Northern Ireland rising up against
this document.
ROSS: Well you did see that in 1985.
HUMPHRYS: Well indeed that's ten years ago.
ROSS: Oh yes and Sunningdale is twenty years
and I've been in the House twenty-one years and the reality is that I haven't
changed my opinion and do you think that the people of Northern Ireland have
not changed theirs either. And the fact is that there have been no
demonstrations in Northern Ireland because no-one has as yet organised them.
Whether such demonstrations are organised or not is a matter to be considered.
We may decide to take a completely different line because on this occasion, as
you have already drawn people's attention to, the government's position in
parliament is much weaker than it was the last time round.
HUMPHRYS: So what you're saying is forget about
civil disobedience campaigns or whatever it may be this time around, the fight
will be waged in parliament but the truth there is that, as you yourself said
right at the very beginning, actually there isn't an awful lot you can do even
there, is there?
ROSS: Well let's wait and see Mr Humphrys.
Let's wait and see. No doubt you and I, or you and someone else will return to
this on this programme in future weeks.
HUMPHRYS: Willie Ross, thank you very much for
joining us.
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