................................................................................ ON THE RECORD ANDREW MACKAY INTERVIEW RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE: 31.5.98 ................................................................................ JOHN HUMPHRYS: Mr Mackay, good afternoon. Would you have done it? ANDREW MACKAY: No, I would not. I think the invitation's decidedly premature. The simple proof is that Sinn Fein/IRA have not yet decommissioned one single weapon, or handed in any explosives. They haven't even said that the armed struggle is finished for all time. Once that's happened then their political leaders can get invitations of this sort. But at this stage, I just think it is invidious for Prince Charles and it's potentially very embarrassing for him. HUMPHRYS: On the other hand, they are on board the peace train aren't they? I mean, without them it would have been impossible to get this far. MACKAY: Yes, well, I'm pleased the ceasefire is holding. I'm pleased that Sinn Fein/IRA seem to have signed up to the Belfast agreement. Let's hope this continues. Let's make further progress, have decommissioning which we must have before prisoners can be released, or Sinn Fein members can become ministers in the Assembly. Let them renounce violence once and for all and then they can take their place in the democratic family, but this is decidedly premature. Can I just say to Mo Mowlam: If you are totally satisfied that they are fit and proper people to come to Hillsborough and to the garden party on Wednesday, why are you then saying on television this morning that you will make sure they don't shake hands with Prince Charles. It seems very odd to invite people to a party and then say the royal host shouldn't actualy meet them. HUMPHRYS: So should the invitation be withdrawn? MACKAY: I think it should not have been issued. HUMPHRYS: But it has been. MACKAY: It's probably almost too late to withdraw it now, but it looks to me as if it's going to be a real farce. I've some experience of garden parties. As a Minister in the last government in the Whips' Office, I helped to handle them at Buckingham Palace and know what it's like at Hillsborough as well. And I think it'll be a terrific farce with Mo trying to fend them off and they trying to shake hands with Prince Charles to make it a propaganda coup for the Republicans, and I think it's going to be very regrettable. And I'm just sad that Prince Charles and the royal family have been dragged into all this. HUMPHRYS: But, it's a bit of lame response, isn't it, to say: Well, I think it's probably too late now. I mean if you feel as strongly about it as you apparently do, why don't you just say: well, withdraw the invitation. People are going to be upset, Prince Charles is going to be upset - withdraw it. MACKAY: Well, I would be quite happy to have it withdrawn, but the simple truth is the invitation's now been issued, a mistake has been made by the Government. They've put Prince Charles into a very invidious and very embarrassing position, and I'm not quite sure how they're going to get out of it now. HUMPHRYS: Well, isn't the likelihood that neither Mr McGuinness nor Mr Adams will actually go. They are both Republicans after all. MACKAY: I'm not so sure they won't go. They are extremely good at public relations. We've seen this when they've hijacked events with the Prime Minister in Downing Street and elsewhere, and made them into great propaganda coups for the Republican movement. I would think they are licking their lips and thinking here's another great opportunity. HUMPHRYS: But you could argue that Mo Mowlam has made the best of a bad job. I mean she said this morning that she sort of had to invite them in a way because the other political leaders were being invited. But she said as you pointed out: I won't introduce them - I'm going to be the person who takes the Prince around. I shall make sure that he doesn't get introduced to Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness. Well, that's fair enough isn't it? MACKAY: But why on earth invite somebody to a party and then say: you're not a fit and proper person to be introduced to the royal host. Well, that's admitting they shouldn't have been invited. HUMPHRYS: Can I just interrupt you for a second because I have just heard this second that they've both said they won't go because Prince Charles is the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, or some part of it. MACKAY: Well, that at least avoids the embarrassing incident, but I think all this could have been avoided by not issuing the invitation in the first place. Invitations should only be issued when they have substantially decommissioned their arms and explosives, and when they have renounced violence for all time, then we welcome into the democratic club. Nothing would please me more than for Republicans to become true democrats. They're moving slowly in the right direction, but it's very very early days yet. HUMPHRYS: But as it turns out they have behaved perhaps, rather diplomatically by saying we won't go. They've saved
embarrassment. MACKAY: Well, they've certainly saved embarrassment for Prince Charles and embarrassment for Mo Mowlam. I mean we want to avoid this, we're just running now into the election time for the Assembly. We're all hoping that we have sensible politicians elected to that Assembly, who'll make the Assembly work. The simple truth is that an invitation like this puts the fear of God into the Unionist community, and the danger is that they will react by actually electing Unionist politicians who will be there to wreck or disrupt the Assembly, which will not be in the interests of a lasting settlement. So I just hope that this incident can be quickly put behind us, and we can get on with the Assembly elections and the right people get elected to the Assembly who have the interests of Northern Ireland at heart. HUMPHRYS: Andrew Mackay, thanks very much indeed. MACKAY: Thank you. ...oooOooo...