Reverend William McCrea (Mid Ulster)

I am grateful for the honour that has been given to me today to address this House. I understand that it is a tradition of the House that maiden speeches should be short and non-controversial. Given the record of many Northern Ireland Members, however, I doubt whether that tradition counts for anything any more. As the new Member for a unique constituency in the United Kingdom, I wish to express the fears and wishes of the people who elected me. If in so doing I appear controversial or partisan, so be it.

First, I pay tribute to the outgoing Member for Mid-Ulster, Mr. John Dunlop. I wish to put on record my personal thanks for his efforts in the years during which he served the people of Mid-Ulster in this House. He and I have been personal friends for a long time. Indeed, I campaigned with him and in each election he had the backing of my party. After the Northern Ireland Assembly elections in October, he wrote to me intimating that he would be standing down and that he looked upon me as his rightful successor. My only regret is that petty bickering and personal ambition on the part of others who claim to be Unionists nearly led to Danny Morrison, an IRA front man, winning the Mid-Ulster seat. Thankfully, the Unionist electorate placed greater importance on the union than on that petty rivalry and united behind me to defeat that apologist for murderers. Although I had a majority of only 78 votes over him, I assure the House that I am delighted to have a majority over the representative of murderers. As a result, Mid-Ulster has a representative who believes in the supremacy of the ballot box and does not believe in supplementing it with the Armalite.

In my constituency, 16,000 people voted for the gunmen and for a man who openly supports an organisation that practises genocide against the Protestant population in Mid-Ulster and other border constituencies. Therefore, I must first mention security in Northern Ireland.

I make my maiden speech today with a heavy heart, because another Protestant has just been brutally murdered by the IRA. As I sat in the early hours of this morning with a young widow in her 30s, with a child of four on her knee and three other children around her, what comfort could I bring them? What message can I deliver to that family when I return home for the burial tomorrow? What hope does the House give me for my people who sit as easy prey to the murderers? Mr. Moffat died brutally while doing his day's work simply because he was a Protestant and not because he was a member of the security forces. He was never connected with them, but he was a Protestant who was carrying on and prospering in his own little family business. That was sufficient to have him murdered and to leave four children without a father.

Early this morning I heard a child of four asking his mother, "Mammy, why did God take Daddy?" That child did not realise that Daddy was done to death by brutal IRA murderers, who are no better than cowards. Only a coward can lie behind a hedge and shoot a man in the back. Only cowards can shoot our policemen, our Ulster Defence Regiment men and our soldiers from behind without showing themselves. I believe that our security forces are capable of dealing effectively with IRA murderers if they could be brought from their dens, and then Ulster could live in peace.

I am disappointed by the reference in the Queen's Speech to security in Northern Ireland. The Government's promise to continue to give the highest priority to upholding law and order there is looked upon with sadness by my people and, if the position were not so serious, it might even be looked upon as a joke. That promise implies that the Government are already doing all they can about security in Northern Ireland, but the House should examine that. Some hon. Members may think that I sound ungrateful, but they must realise that if all that can be done is being done, the future holds nothing but despair, death, sorrow and tragedy for my constituents.

Do two murders a week in an area the size of Yorkshire suggest that all in the Government's power is being done to eradicate terrorism? Week after week, and day after day, we mourn, we weep, and we bury our dead, and the cry that goes up as thousands of Ulstermen and women walk behind the caskets on our country roads is, "Will it ever stop?" or, "Who is next?" The question is not, "Will there be a next?", but my people are asking, "Who is next?" Perhaps someone sitting at home sympathising with that widow will tonight leave behind a widow and little children as orphans. It seems that we rear our children — I have five — just to be mown down by the IRA gunmen at will. Does anyone really care?

Are there any Members in the House today who would accept that level of violence in their constituencies without being enraged? Yet an eminent Member of the House once said that there is an acceptable level of violence in Ulster. Until the Government show the will and determination to win in Northern Ireland that they showed in the Falklands, death, destruction and despair will continue to be a way of life in our Province. The long-drawn-out murder campaign by the IRA and the inactivity of successive British Governments have led to cynicism among the Unionists of Northern Ireland. In the Falklands, when the Government's reputation was at stake, money and effort could be found to deal with the problem. No effort was spared to free 1,800 British citizens from under the heel of a terrible aggressor.

Unlike Opposition Members, I salute the resolute leadership given to our nation by the Prime Minister, and I congratulate her on her forthright and honourable stand for freedom. We in Ulster were proud that Her Majesty's Government were not willing to sacrifice the lives of our gallant service men, but that they efficiently and effectively finished the war in a proper military fashion. Although we must all grieve at the loss of any life in any war, and the lives lost in the Falklands war, Britain had restored to it a national pride in the fact that aggression would not succeed and that cherished freedom would be defended, no matter what the cost.

However, the position in Northern Ireland — not distant relatives but part of the same British family—has been allowed to drag on, not for a few months but for many years. We seem to be a political pawn in an international game. We have admired the efforts of our young service men, but we genuinely believe that their political masters have tied their hands rather than risk the wrath of the press and the international community, which is manipulated by the IRA propaganda machine.

I pay tribute to the members of the security forces who continually risk their lives in the streets and in the countryside of Ulster, both on duty and off duty. I make a solemn appeal to the Government: do not let the matter continue for another 13 years. Perhaps some hon. Members do not remember it, but there was a time when Ulster lived in peace. [Interruption.] It may be funny to some people but 2,000 dead bodies are not laughable. When our fellow British citizens died as service men in the Falklands, the rest of the family, and we as part of it, did not think that funny either.

There was a time when we did live in peace. Prosperity did blossom and tranquillity reigned. I pay tribute to the gallant Ulster special constabulary, who courageously maintained the peace of Ulster although they were maligned both inside and outside this House by men whose avowed aim was to see Ulster out of the United Kingdom. Unfortunately, to appease Republicanism, that dedicated force was disbanded, and our children have witnessed nothing but death and tragedy ever since.

If only I could take hon. Members to the homes of the victims. If only they could take the hand of the sorrowing widow and see the scars that have been caused by the IRA. If they did, I am sure that they would feel as I do. I do feel passionately about this, because I lost two of my own loved ones who were murdered by the IRA. A young girl of 21, just engaged to be married, went out to show her aunt her engagement ring, proud that she had put it on her finger. Her young brother of 16 went with her. The remains of that 16-year-old boy were scooped up in a plastic bag.

When I went to identify the body, I witnessed a few bones with some flesh on them. They looked as if they had been savaged by a wild animal. The girl of 21 had half her head blown off and her body burst wide open. The effects of such deaths devastated the family. The mother, who saw them go out but not return—closed coffins came back— at the early age of 41 died last October of a broken heart. That is what is happening in Ulster I assure the House that that is not funny.

Death is continuing on every hand in our community. The appeal from the people of Ulster, who want to live as part of this family, is, "Stamp out these evil men." Not only is strong action needed in the apprehension of these criminals, but a punishment that fits the crime must he administered. I say now that in the debate on hanging I shall be clearly voting for action that takes these murderers out of circulation for ever. We in Ulster make our choice. I would rather have a dead martyr any day than a living murderer, because a dead martyr cannot shoot someone in the back, fire the gun or set the bomb, whereas a living murderer so often has.

We in Ulster—I know that hon. Members perhaps feel the same—are sick of looking at such sights. A people's patience is running out. Must they live like this for the rest of their lives? No free people should have to suffer that.

History proves that Ulster gladly gave its sons and daughters to fight for Britain at the call of duty. We did not need conscription. The history books and the facts show that they went gladly. We love freedom, and, no matter what action we must take to maintain it, we shall never—I say this whether it is liked or not never surrender to these Republicans; nor will we let them win in Ulster.

Some people are under the misapprehension that the IRA is fighting for its legitimate aspirations and is using violence to counter the repression that it has experienced. Let me lay that myth to rest. The IRA has two aims. The first and the most important aim is to drive the Protestants out of parts of Northern Ireland and eventually to get them out altogether. Then it will be Sinn Fein alone. Isolated farmers are threatened. Members of their families are killed with the sole aim of intimidating the survivors, who have no one to sell the farms to but Republicans, because no one will go into those areas any more. It is nothing short of genocide, and it is happening on a large scale in Mid-Ulster. Secondly, the IRA knows that it can never win its case through the ballot box. So it seeks by violence to pervert the democratic process.

Her Majesty's Government say in the Gracious Speech: the people of Northern Ireland will continue to be offered a framework for participation in local democracy and political progress on the basis of widespread acceptance throughout the community". The Anglo-Irish talks and their insistence on power-sharing give the gunmen the incentive to continue their campaign. As a Unionist, I reject any interference in Northern Ireland by the Government of the Irish Republic, who give moral support to the IRA through the continued constitutional claim that they make on British territory, and give physical shelter to the IRA gunmen by refusing to extradite them.

I earnestly beseech this Government not to go down the road of such dangerous talks. The Unionist population says clearly, "A united Ireland, never." If any in this House are in cloud-cuckoo-land or a dream world, believing that a million Protestants in Ulster will surrender their precious heritage, it would be good for them to awake from their sleep. I assure the House that, after the deaths that have occurred in our Province, we are British, we are proud to be British, it has cost us to remain British, and British by the grace of God we will remain.

I want to see in our country a fully developed Government, based on British democracy. My party has not tried to wreck the Northern Ireland Assembly. Rather, we have sought to use it to introduce better and more effective government to Northern Ireland. I assure the House that direct rule is and has been a fiasco. We have not gone sulking into the corner, like the SDLP and the hon. Member for Foyle (Mr. Hume), trying to outdo their fellow Republicans, Sinn Fein, in not taking their seats in the Assembly. Neither have we acted like spoilt children, like members of the Official Unionist party who, because all the sweets were not given to them, would not play any more.

This Government must get away from the idea that a power-sharing solution is possible. The hon. Member for Foyle knows that in Londonderry, where the SDLP is in the majority, it has taken every key post for itself. I am a member of a district council, where the SDLP majority has taken every key post. There is no power-sharing there, none whatsoever. Listening to the hon. Member's speech today, one would have thought that he was a moderate in-between. I remind the House that it was a member of that hon. Gentleman's own party who, when 19 British soldiers were murdered at Warrenpoint, is on record as saying, "I shed no tears over them." That was the day on which Lord Mountbatten himself was murdered. When it was put to the hon. Gentleman that many of those young British soldiers were of his own religion, he said, "But they were not Irish."

We live in a sad time, but I ask Her Majesty's Government to allow our people to have the rule of their country as a part of the British family. I ask this House and the Government this evening to give us security, to give us democracy, and to allow our people to live in peace.

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