Northern Ireland (St Andrews Agreement) Bill

I invite the hon. Lady to come. I will get her a free pass and a cup of tea, and perhaps a hot cross bun. The people of Northern Ireland know that I do not say one thing in this House and another outside. I will not accept Sinn Fein paying lip service to the concepts of the St. Andrews agreement but continuing in crime and not supporting the police and the authority of the Crown forces. In all those matters, the members of Sinn Fein have still to prove that they have crossed the Rubicon in their mind and ideology and that they accept the Crown forces operating in defence of the state. Mr. Adams continues to attack the rule of law, suggesting recently in America that he does not accept British law, and that he does not accept the Orange Order, which is probably the most truthful statement that he has made for a long time. I am sure that the parades commissioners would like to hear that statement. He said last week, in the Village magazine that"““There can be no role…in Ireland for MI5.””" But if he is genuinely to support policing, he must accept that, as paragraph 6 of the St. Andrews agreement states, he must endorse ““all the policing…institutions””. That ““all”” includes the security forces and MI5. There must be no more double-speak from Mr. Adams on those matters. He has to move. He has to deliver. The people of Northern Ireland have delivered their young men and women to the bullet and the bomb, their mothers and fathers to murder. It is time that Mr. Adams delivered us from that state and we return to the ways of peace and the ways of power. He claims that he cannot move until he gets agreement on the modalities of all justice and police departments and until he gets a precise date for the devolution of policing. I refer him to the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit Öpik), who can tell him about the unreliability of dates. For Mr. Adams, the dates seem never to develop. Mr. Adams well knows that none of those things are in the gift of the DUP, the SDLP or anyone else, unless the Sinn Feiners change. The people of Northern Ireland will not change; they will stand fast in the liberties that they believe that they should maintain. It is blatantly obvious that the community is not ready to say that Sinn Fein will do what it is supposed to, so we have to put it to the test. I trust that the test will be one that everyone can believe in, and the first step must be the declaration—not only the declaration but the demonstration—that it has really changed and will help people forward, especially the police. At St. Andrews, I said that the clock had started for Sinn Fein to commit to policing, but since then it has studiously avoided every opportunity for commitment in a practical manner. The week before St. Andrews, Sinn Fein councillor Tom Hartley declared that Sinn Fein must detach the police from British state control. The week after St. Andrews, there was a dispute in Ballymurphy involving a gang attack, a severe beating and a gun attack, which all went uncondemned by the local Sinn Fein councillor and other local spokesmen for Sinn Fein, and no witness evidence from the community has been forthcoming or even encouraged by Sinn Fein members. Earlier this month, a man and a woman were viciously beaten and then burned to death in South Armagh by a republican family. The Sinn Fein MP for that area bit his tongue when it came to support for the police in their investigation of that horrific and diabolical crime, and once again no evidence is forthcoming from the people in that area who know who did it. Without genuine community and political support for the police, how are Unionists expected to move forward in confidence that Sinn Fein is ready to support the police? How can this House realistically believe that in 16 weeks it will be proved that Sinn Fein has done everything it should have done, that it is the most innocent of the innocent, and that all is well? Go and tell that even to the Roman Catholic people off the bottom of the Falls road and in Ballymurphy, and they will say what they are going through at this present time. My party and its executive officers have resolved the following:"““The DUP holds to its long-standing position that there can only be an agreement involving Sinn Fein when there has been delivery by the republican movement, tested and proved, over a credible period, in terms of support for the PSNI, the courts and the rule of law, a complete end to paramilitary and criminal activity and the removal of terrorist structures.””" The refusal of Sinn Fein even to begin to give support to the PSNI, the courts and the rule of law has clear adverse implications. We must demand at this time that the St. Andrews agreement is kept and that no provisions creep in to let these men off the hook. The DUP has met all the tests and conditions set for the agreement, and will meet all the tests and conditions set for democratic government in Northern Ireland. All I can say to the House is to echo the words of the great German reformer: ““Here we stand; we can do naught else.”” I trust that the Government will stand up to the terrorists and that we will see an end to terrorism and the beginning of a better Ulster, with pure democracy leading it.