Interpretation

Part of Northern Ireland Bill (Allocation of Time) – in the House of Commons at 4:49 pm on 22 June 1982.

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Photo of Mr Enoch Powell Mr Enoch Powell , South Down 4:49, 22 June 1982

It is a pity that we are not to have the opportunity of examining the remaining clauses of the Bill when some of the answers to the question which the hon. Gentleman has posed could be more adequately explained. Let me content myself with pointing to the fact that after the third of the Anglo-Irish meetings to which I have referred the regret that was expressed by the Irish Prime Minister was that the parliamentary tier of the federal arrangement could not yet be set up because there was not an Assembly in Northern Ireland. He at any rate felt sure—and he is not innocent of the political composition of the population of Northern Ireland—that if once one could get that tertial quid, that separate Assembly, separate spokesmen of what is an integral part of the United Kingdom, the remainder would follow.

I am in difficulty at this point because I have no wish to say anything which would qualify my desire to accept entirely the integrity of the right hon. Gentleman's intentions. The right hon. Gentleman has more than once asserted that he believes that the effect of the Bill will be to strengthen the position of Northern Ireland in the United Kingdom. Not only is that impossible to assert or to believe, and not only does it run contrary to all the evidence; it runs contrary to what has fallen from the right hon. Gentleman—perhaps by inadvertence—from time to time. We were prepared for it by remarks that were made in a considered interview by the Irish peer who accompanied the right hon. Gentleman to his present office. He said: Greater devolved government is not the solution. It is an essential contribution to a new set of attitudes. It is one part of the strategy—co-operation with the Irish Republic is another. Whatever the pressures on us to drop it, we have to set our faces against that—like flint. That fits neatly like a hand into the glove that was displayed three years ago.

As recently as the end of last week, the right hon. Gentleman said on the radio in the Province that integration is not compatible with meaningful relations with the Irish Republic. Only a devolved structure could supply the necessary basis. It could not be put more tersely or more correctly. The purpose of the Bill, the purpose of the constitution that the Bill will enact, is to found one of the necessary pillars of a federal arrangement into which Northern Ireland will be moved, out of the United Kingdom and into a united Ireland.

However impenetrable those facts appear to be on this side of the water and in this House, they are plainly visible in the Province. There is no difficulty for the IRA to understand the purpose and tendency of this legislation. They say to themselves "Now we know and understand where Her Majesty's Government stand. They are engaged on an operation with the United States and the Irish Republic to take Northern Ireland out of the United Kingdom and to put it where we want it to be—in a united Ireland. What is more, they will win. Just look at the forces that are assembled on their side. Here is the evidence of it."

Everyone in Northern Ireland who is opposed to the Union must draw comfort, satisfaction and assurance for the future from this legislation and the Government's determination to force it through. Conversely, those in Northern Ireland—they are the majority—who desire beyond anything else to retain their membership of the United Kingdom and their British status are discouraged and antagonised by the sight of their own Parliament and Government who, they believe, pledged themselves to that cause, enacting legislation whose purpose and intended outcome is only too clear not only to themselves but to their opponents.