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ON THE RECORD
DAVID TRIMBLE INTERVIEW
RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION: BBC-1 DATE: 19.2.95
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JOHN HUMPHRYS: David Trimble, on the basis of what you
know about the framework document, it appears that you know quite a lot, are
you prepared to enter into talks?
DAVID TRIMBLE: Well what we know about the framework
document comes from leaks, mainly from the Dublin press and also the
indications given to us by the Prime Minister on Tuesday. The situation may
have changed since then but on the basis of what we were told on Tuesday, we
then, as you know, wrote to the Prime Minister and said that we did not see in
what he had said, a basis for inter-party talks, so that we cannot see
ourselves as at present advised, entering into the cage that the framework
document appears to us to be. That doesn't mean that we won't talk to the
government, that we won't try and explain to Mr. Major where he has made a
mistake and that we won't try and and lay out before him a more positive path
to take.
HUMPHRYS: But you will not talk, and I emphasis
this bit, because this is the key to it in many people's mind, you will not
talk on the basis of that framework document?
TRIMBLE: If it turns out to be what we expect it
to be, and if it contains the proposals, particularly with regard to the
all-Ireland political body, to which we have consistently for months, told the
government is not acceptable, if it is going to try and push through something
which we have told them is quite unacceptable, well we're not going to start
talking on that basis. You know, one of the funny things about Tuesday's
meeting and myself and my two colleagues remarked on this afterwards.
HUMPHRYS: The meeting with the Prime Minister?
TRIMBLE: Yes. One of the funny things about it,
and we looked at it afterwards, looking at it from a Unionist point of view, it
was all stick and no carrot, and we find it strange that the government
hadn't anything to put on the table that might have been attractive or might
have represented the views of the greater number of the people of Northern
Ireland.
HUMPHRYS: And yet you were talking earlier this
morning about regarding the framework document, and being encouraged by the
government to regard the framework document as a sort of consultation
document, something about which you would talk....
TRIMBLE: No Peter, I wasn't.
HUMPHRYS: John - sorry I don't know which
programme you think you're on, but anyway...(laughter)...
TRIMBLE: Look there's a very curious thing here,
and I think it's worth drawing out. That the government says two quite
different things about the framework document, every now and again it says it's
a matter for consultation, and then on the other hand it says to us that we
should judge the package as a whole. Now something that has to be judged
as a package as a whole is something that you will have to take or leave, that
you have to make a decision on, something that's not open for change.
There's an inconsistency here, and when
you consider that it's been six months intensive negotiation and the hours they
spent in Dublin, yesterday, and the hours they spent in Belfast earlier in the
week and all the rest of it, and you ask yourself, is this really going to
change, and knowing also as we know, that it's very tightly drafted and does
not appear to give any room for manoeuvre, then it isn't really a consultative
document. Now if it was a consultative document, if it was purely
consultative, and if it was one consultative document that you could look at
together with other documents, then that might be a different matter, and if
we were in a position to broaden the agenda so that it included the things
that the greater number of people in Northern Ireland are interested in, and
gave us a basis then to move forward, that would be a different thing, but at
the moment there's no sign that it is.
HUMPHRYS: Right, so the message coming from the
government, quite clearly, is that this is in effect a blueprint, that you said
has been drawn up over a period of six months, some would say it's been going
on for two years, between civil servants and indeed ministers, and this is what
two sovereign governments have agreed is the blueprint for the future of
Northern Ireland. On that basis you are saying it is inconceivable that we
will negotiate with any other parties, enter into talks with any other parties.
TRIMBLE: We will talk, as I say, to the
government about our own positive proposals.
HUMPHRYS: Yes, but you've always been prepared to
do that, there's nothing new about that.
TRIMBLE: We've always been prepared to do
that, we've also been prepared to meet occasionally with some other parties,
again to explain our views and to seek a way forward on that basis, but if the
framework document appears to us to be a cage containing proposals that we
regard to be hostile to the existence of the union then obviously, we cannot go
into it.
HUMPHRYS: So let me be quite clear about this
then, because I think there has been some confusion over this, partly because
of what you said earlier this morning. If the document is as you expect it to
be, and if the leaks that we saw of it last month, earlier this month, are
right, then it is no deal, you will have nothing whatsoever to do with it, you
will not even contemplate the possibility of all party talks.
TRIMBLE: Well, I'll repeat what I've said, and
what I said today is exactly what I said at the earlier interview, that we have
our own agenda that we are prepared to talk about, but if the framework
document comes in the form outlined to us on Tuesday, and that's a big IF,
because it may change, it may have changed, over the course of the last
fortnight, but if it comes in the form outlined to us last Tuesday, containing
the proposals to which we have taken very grave exception, and consequently is
as we see it, a cage, we won't go into it.
HUMPHRYS: But there is an escape route here for
you isn't there because there's nothing to stop you saying on the basis of what
we are encouraged to believe by the British Government, nothing is set in
stone, we can discuss this, it's a kind of a la carte menu, I mean, you can
adopt that view?
TRIMBLE: Well if it is an a la carte menu and
again, the shape of the document will tell you that and the willingness of the
Government to draw up an agenda that includes the views of other people rather
than an agenda that is simply the framework document, will also show that, so
that it will be possible for the public to see very clearly whether we have
moved away from a prescriptive framework document that doesn't allow room for
manoeuvre.
HUMPHRYS: Right, but given that it is that latter
a prescriptive document that doesn't allow room for manoeuvre, you are saying
we will not deal with it, what then do you do?
TRIMBLE: Well I've told you what we'll do, we
will talk to the Government to try and persuade them that they are doing the
wrong thing, we shall then..
HUMPHRYS: But you've done that for a very long
time now?
TRIMBLE: Yes, we will continue to do it and we'll
show to them by not going in to talk on the basis of a prescriptive document
that doesn't give us room for manoeuvre, we will show them by doing so that
they have gone down the wrong road and if the Government's words are to be
believed that there are three locks and the first lock is that of the parties,
then we will have turned the first lock and they will not be able to proceed if
the Government is to be believed and then we will show them a better road.
HUMPHRYS: And the better road is what?
TRIMBLE: Well here I must ask you to wait and
see, we'll be saying more about this I hope in the course of the coming week.
HUMPHRYS: But it's pretty unlikely isn't it that
you can produce something in the course of the coming week that you have failed
to produce in the past twenty five years, or indeed, the past seventy years
that's going to make the British Government say, oh we missed this, we've done
all this work, we've for two years now we have been involved in intensive talks
and we've come up with our own blueprint and now all of a sudden at the fifty
nineth minute you say, we've got something new, unlikely isn't it?
TRIMBLE: Well, maybe the best thing would be...
for the Government to turn back to what it was doing earlier, because you've
been talking about two years, actually this particular version of the framework
document seems to us is the work of the last six months.
HUMPHRYS: All right six months then.
TRIMBLE: And if they were to turn back to other
things and in one sense what you say is quite right, there is very little
that's new, the framework document is introducing a form..or will try to
introduce a form of joint authority and you can trace that back to the
Nationalist forum of the early 1980's, you could even trace it back to an
original SDLP proposal I think in 1972, so in that sense there is
nothing new, but I think you will see that we have at least some novel
approaches to bring forward in the course of this coming week.
HUMPHRYS: You produce your novel approach and the
Government says well yeah, that's fine and dandy, and of course we'll talk to
you about that Mr. Trimble, I mean it's jolly interesting and we'll have these
bilateral talks, but in the meantime of course, this blueprint stays on the
table and that is the basis because it's an agreement that has been reached
between two sovereign Governments after a great deal of work and we believe -
because they've made this absolutely clear - we believe this is what will
appeal to the people of Northern Ireland.
TRIMBLE: Well now there's some interesting points
there because when you refer to it being an agreement between two sovereign
Governments, that raises a very interesting question - is it a treaty? You see
in the last few days we've had..suddenly had for no apparent reason, denials
eminating from the Government that the frameowrk document is a treaty and I
find that curious, then the approach that you are suggesting involves what I
believe some government ministers at one stage and maybe even still intend to
do namely, as one minister said not so long ago, that he was going to call the
Unionist bluff and force them in to accepting this, well now that, as Jim
Molyneaux said in the House of Commons on Thursday, it's a very dangerous
tactic, it's been tried before and failed and it will fail again, and I think
you'll find that the greater..that the Conservative Party in Parliament and in
the country will be extremely upset to see a Government turing on people that
they regarded as their allies and forcing them in to all Ireland political
institutions against their will.
HUMPHRYS: You say it's been tried before and
failed but you would agree, you've said so yourself that in many respects the
history of the past twenty five years shows British Governments moving further
and further away from the Union and the reality is they will say they have
presumably made this calculation for themselves but you may talk about locks,
the political parties being one of them but the truth is you don't have
anywhere else to go now?
TRIMBLE: Well, that's not actually true, but I'm
not going to go into hypothetical situations.
HUMPHRYS: Well, I'm not dealing in hypotheticals
here.
TRIMBLE: And you have said how over the past
twenty-five years British governments have tended to compromise on the Union in
the belief that they'll get peace but they've always failed. They've failed
to get peace because they haven't assuaged the Republican demands, and they've
upset their own supporters. You know as Kipling put it a long time ago, if
you pay the Danegeld you never get rid of the Dane, and concessions paid to
terrorism has merely prolonged terrorism. I have ...
HUMPHRYS: It stopped the fighting. Whatever
they've paid or haven't paid, it has stopped the fighting. We have seen peace
in Northern Ireland now since last August.
TRIMBLE: We have seen a cessation of violence for
five months, and last night we heard on our radios, repeated again this
morning,t hreats by Mr Adams to resume the violence if he doesn't get his way.
HUMPHRYS: Well, he wouldn't have put in those
terms, but look...
TRIMBLE: No but it was fairly clear. He
said that the people who are complaining about the Unionist leadership he says
is not interested in peace, because it's complaining about the proposals that
have been brought forward, a very clear threat in that isn't there.
HUMPHRYS: You yourselves cannot be seen to be
walking away from peace can you?
TRIMBLE: We will be doing our best to provide
a genuine and permanent peace, but those who are simply surrendering to
terrorist blackmail will not be providing peace.
HUMPHRYS: And your problem is - you said earlier,
is this a treaty or what is it? Let me tell you what Mr Ancram said: It
represents - and you will have heard this of course - it represents the shared
understanding of two governments of what is necessary and capable to do to
command the consent of the Irish people. Now it is of the Northern Irish
people, now that is absolutely clear, what they're saying in essence is, "If
you the politicians don't like it, we can go over your heads because the Irish
people, the people of Northern Ireland will like it".
TRIMBLE: Well now that, you'll notice involves
disregarding the promises and the undertakings given by government, but I'll
leave that to one side. Mr Ancram is wrong, and that's what we've been saying
to him. He has misjudged the situation. We're all in favour of trying to draw
up proposals that will command consent. Our advice to him is that the
proposals that he drew up and presented to us earlier this week will not
command consent, and we are quite confident that we represent the views of the
greater number of people on this issue.
HUMPHRYS: But you don't have great legions at your
command do you? What are you going to do.....
TRIMBLE: We have the electoral support behind us
and if the government is going to attach itself to the democratic principle and
the principle of consent, then it will have to seek the consent of the people,
and it has not yet endeavoured to do it, instead it is bringing forward a
prescriptive blue-print and threatening us.
HUMPHRYS: And in the meantime what will you do to
threaten the government. Will you say for instance, guerrilla warfare in the
Commons, will you say, we'll resign en masse from the House of Commons, will
you say, we'll stage a campaign of civil disobedience? Which of those measures
might you be able to enforce?
TRIMBLE: Well, let us wait and see, let's not run
too far ahead as to the particular measures that we're using, and I don't want
to explore those because if I do people will regard that as deploying threats
and we're not actually in the business of deploying threats.
HUMPHRYS: But they're in the back of your minds.
TRIMBLE: Well, we will consider the situation
when we see what it is. I don't think it's wise to be too overly worked out in
terms of how you might deal with one hypothetical situation or another, let us
wait and see.
HUMPHRYS: David Trimble, thank you very much.
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