The majority of
Ulster Unionists has given the Ulster Democratic Unionist Party the
Custodianship of our Province. They have charged us with the Trust Deeds of our
future.
We have a solemn
and terrifying responsibility. Every evil force, which seeks the destruction of
our Province, the betrayal of our heritage, the abolishing of the Union and the final victory of our enemies,
is united to achieve that goal.
This is war, war
waged in every sphere. It is a fight where no Queensbury Rules are honoured. It
is a battle where no international agreements are upheld. It is a struggle for
the very existence of democracy. Every evil force is harnessed to the chariot
of vilest treachery and diabolical deception.
Destruction of Ulster is the aim and the IRA is the
instrument of the entire Judas Iscariot strategy. Treachery is their order of
the day.
The great
objective is to discredit the loyal Unionist majority and seek, by the most
underhand schemes, to turn the Democratic Unionist Party into another easy
pushover spineless organisation, as has happened to the Ulster Unionist Party.
Let me tell you
that as long as I lead this party it is going to honour the election pledges it
has made. It will not be entering any talks, negotiations, pow‑wows or
socialisations with IRA/Sinn Fein.
Until Sinn Fein
has surrendered its murder weaponry and turned away completely, totally and
forever from its campaign of treachery, murder and mayhem we will not be
speaking to them in any way or negotiating with them at all!
I would remind
you of the answer Tony Blair gave to me in the House of Commons in November
2002, when I asked him `What is an act of completion? Does it consist of
IRA/Sinn Fein repudiating and ceasing violence, and being disbanded, or does it
simply mean that they make a statement that they will give up violence? Can the
Prime Minister tell us what he believes it means?'
Here is his reply:
`I can. It is
not merely a statement, a declaration or words. It means giving up violence
completely in a way that satisfies everyone, and gives them confidence that the
IRA has ceased its campaign, and enables us to move the democratic process
forward, with every party that wants to be in government abiding by the same
democratic rules.'
To‑day I
say to the Prime Minister, `There is no going back, Mr. Blair. There is no
letting off the hook, there is no diluting of the promises made. It is all or
nothing. It is action, not promises. It is public demonstration, not concealed
equivocation smokescreened behind false undertakings. `This is your promise.
This is your self-appointed programme, Mr Blair. This is the way you said you
would go. The Ulster electorate
is determined you will walk this road of your own choosing. Away then from
prevarication, dilution and compromise, Mr Blair. Going over to the enemy is
treachery and betrayal.
“You made the
promise! You declared it! You set it in stone! You wrote it on the wall! You
promised to fulfil it!”
The DUP stands
ready to enter real talks, provided total decommissioning has been
accomplished. Without that there is no future peace in Northern
Ireland. The IRA are busy, aided and abetted by
Dublin, notching up a further victory, gaining another raft of concessions and
taking another step in the destruction of our place in this island. Make no
mistake about it, it is war to the end. It is a matter of life and death,
freedom or bondage, whether we shall be serfs of Dublin or free citizens of Britannia.
In the election
campaign a certain journalist insisted in putting to me the question which has
been asked over and over again, ‘Will you talk with IRA/Sinn Fein?’ I caught
him by the lapels of the coat and told him in no uncertain language ‑
NEVER! and never it is!
‘To talk is not
to negotiate’, they cry. We have seen that in the fate of the Unionist Party!
That Party had
its back broken by such talks. IRA/Sinn Fein must learn that there is a price
to be paid by them for a place at the table and until they get rid of the guns
on the table, under the table and outside the doors of the negotiating chamber
they will have no place in the talks. They have a choice to make, and until
they make it the door of democracy is locked against them.
If Mr Blair is going to lie again to the
people of Ulster he will reap
what he sows.
The time has
come to face up to IRA/Sinn Fein terrorists. Concessions will not buy them off.
The price is too high, because the payments will continue until we are bankrupt
and finally devoured. No amount of appeasement will ever satisfy this monster
of blood.
He who quickens and
makes stronger the appetite of this monster will become its final gulp and
swallow. This monster must be killed off or it will kill us off.
This is something Mr. Blair refuses to
learn.
As long as the
DUP is around, Mr. Blair will not be allowed to escape from his promise. Prime
Minister, it is time you honoured your pledge.
This issue is
even more serious than the European issue at this time. It is literally the
right to live. As long as IRA/Sinn Fein murder squads and other terrorists hold
on to their weapons, all right thinking citizens are in danger. This threat
must be smashed once and for all and for ever!
The government
must face up to IRA/Sinn Fein and stop facing down the law‑abiding
citizens of this country.
Every right
thinking citizen of Northern Ireland expects Mr. Blair to keep his word and give them the right to live.
Let it be
carefully noted, that every time IRA/Sinn Fein has come under pressure, all the
energies of the Roman Catholic church are called into action to pressurise the
government to concede something more to them and save them. At the time of the
hunger strike the Pope himself made the suicides of the IRA participants
religiously respectable by sending his own special emissary to meet them and
present them with gold crucifixes blessed by himself.
Then pressures
were put on John Hume to make Gerry Adams and his murder organisation
respectable. John Hume became the engineer of his own party’s destruction. He
now sits in retirement upon its ruins. Who got Jerry Adams elected to Westminster? John Hume. Dr. Hendron saw
himself ousted by the action of his own leader, at the behest of the church.
Dr. Hendron was the first victim, and now his whole party has become the second
victim of Hume's church‑dictated actions.
Now the Roman
Church has been called in once again. The church sees the rise and renewal of
resurrected traditional unionism as a menace to IRA/Sinn Fein, thus Archbishop
Brady's intervention.
Running true to
form, the Jesuits within the church have refused to reveal the full contents of
the speech. Only a specially prepared version is available.
Why, at this
particular time, do we not get the full story? Is it not interesting how
quickly the ecumenical clergy have hastened to run to the aid of the
Archbishop?
No wonder the
enemies of our Province are worried! Before the last election they were crowing
victoriously. Traditional unionism was about to be buried for ever. But lo and
behold, a resurrection took place! A newer and stronger spirit came down upon
the unionist cause which had been so blatantly and barefacedly betrayed by one
David Trimble. A fresh power‑driven determination and resolution overcame
those who had been viewing the situation as beyond repair. Unionist
traditionalism united, and at the end of the election the tide had turned, and
best of all IRA /Sinn Fein was defeated in West Belfast, and unionists are back
in business in that area. The DUP now has an elected representative in the
Assembly from every electoral area.
Many inside the
Unionist Party left that Party and rallied to join the revival of the old
heroic unionist spirit.
Fellow
unionists, we are not going to allow IRA/Sinn Fein to rule over us. We are not
going to pull down our flag and join with the Trimble‑ite slaves in the
tents of republicanism. We are not going to nominate republicans to the House
of Lords.
True unionism,
unionism cleansed and delivered from the softness of political expediency, has
arisen and is on the march. Let all prevaricators tremble, for truth will
always win. Let all compromisers retreat, for I hear the marching feet of the
enlarged and newly regenerated battalions of traditional unionism.
Let those of you
rejoice who have stood by the old cause in its darkest days. Weeping has
endured for the night, but joy has come in the morning,
We welcome to
your true family those who have left the Trimble conspiracy, and we trust that
together with one God, one flag, one covenant and one aim, we shall live to see
the day of ultimate victory.
To all right
thinking people of Northern Ireland we extend the hand of friendship. We pledge to work for the
province‑wide practice of the basic principle upon which this Party was
founded - All men equal under the law, and all men equally subject to the law.
For the past
thirty‑four years I have kept the promise I made when first elected as MP
for North Antrim, to serve all
my constituents with equal dedication. This whole party is dedicated to the
same resolve.
What we ask for
ourselves we are pledged to fight for all other law‑abiding citizens. No
person, irrespective of his or her religion, colour, class or creed, has
anything to fear from us. Come with us, and we will do you good, is our warm
invitation to you to join us in the rebuilding of our beloved Province. It is
in this spirit we have entered these talks with the British Government.
We are all
creatures of the one and only Creator, God. We are all travellers on the same
road of mortality. We will all one day stand before God and give an account of
our stewardship. Let us gird ourselves with a new undimmed consecration so that
we shall fight a good fight, finish the course, and keep the faith.
Once to every
man and nation
Comes the moment
to decide,
In the strife of
Truth with Falsehood,
For the good or
evil side;
Some great cause, a new beginning,
Offers each the bloom or blight
And the choice goes by forever
'Twixt that darkness and that light.
Then to side with Truth is noble
When we share her wretched crust,
‘Ere her cause brings fame or profit
And 'tis prosperous to be just;
Then it is the brave man chooses,
While the coward stands aside
Till the multitude make virtue
Of the faith they had denied.
Though the cause of evil prosper,
Yet 'tis Truth alone is strong;
Though her portion be the scaffold,
And upon the throne be Wrong,
Yet that scaffold sways the future,
And, behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow,
Keeping watch above His own.
(Poem by James Russell Lowell)
The British House of Commons in its prayers
each day, repeats this benediction, and I would repeat it now, not in hypocrisy
or formality, but in truth and reality: The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the
love of God and the communion of the Holy Ghost be with you all, Amen.
