Northern Ireland

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 4 April 1974.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Mr Lawrence Orr Mr Lawrence Orr , South Down 12:00, 4 April 1974

The sense of unreality that anyone from Ulster feels in this debate is almost breathtaking. It passes belief. I wonder what some of the widows of those who have lost their lives in Ulster would think were they sitting in the Gallery now.

We had high hopes of the Secretary of State. We watched him during the long debates on the White Paper, the Constitution Act and the rest when he was leading for the Opposition and we took him for a sensible, sensitive, wise and reasonable man. It is astonishing to me, and I say this to him with all courtesy, that we should now hear reiterated, as if nothing whatever had happened, all the old arguments that were used by the previous Government when they were in office. It is the most extraordinary situation. It is simply to ignore the fact that there has been a General Election and it is to ignore totally and absolutely that the Ulster people have expressed their views about this matter in the most unmistakable manner. It is astounding to those of us who come from Ulster that both sides of the House appear to behave as if absolutely nothing had happened.

During those long debates I wearied not only the House but myself by arguing that the Constitution Act, the assumptions upon which it was based, and all the assumptions that lay behind the Sunningdale Agreement, were founded upon an illusion. One of the most important illusions was that they would command the assent and consent of the majority of the people of Northern Ireland. I said repeatedly that they did not. I can well understand the House at that time and before the General Election thinking that my analysis was wrong. I can understand the House thinking, in the light of the advice that Ministers were getting then from other quarters, that I might be mistaken, but how anyone could assume that now, in the light of what has happened, is something which is impossible to understand.

The Ulster people have used the election to express their opinion plainly about three matters. The first concerns the restoration of order. Secondly, they have emphatically and overwhelmingly rejected the assumptions that lie behind the Sunningdale Agreement. The third—and here I take issue with the Secretary of State—concerns the Constitution Act.

The right hon. Gentleman distinguished between Sunningdale and the formation of the Executive, but he will remember that one depended upon the other. It was not the Executive which went to Sunningdale, but the Executive-designate. If agreement had not been reached at Sunningdale it is doubtful whether the Executive would have come into being and it is doubtful whether the House would have passed the order in council devolving the powers. Thus the two are inextricably linked and must be taken together. If the Ulster people have rejected one they have rejected them both.