................................................................................ ON THE RECORD DAVID TRIMBLE INTERVIEW RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE: 24.5.98 ................................................................................ JOHN HUMPHRYS: Good morning, good afternoon to you. DAVID TRIMBLE: Good day. HUMPHRYS: Good day, that's safe. Right, you probably didn't hear Gerry Adams on the programme this morning because you were travelling there. But what he said was - I asked him about decommissioning, as you might expect and he said: let's sit down with David Trimble. If he's serious about this, we're serious about it, let us talk about the whole thing. Why will he not do that? TRIMBLE: Well, why will Mr Adams not actually stop evading issues and deal with them properly and honestly, that's the-I am getting really quite fed up with all these excuses that he presents. He was told, he's been told again and again, and again, the Prime Minister spelt it out in his speech in Balmoral, at the Balmoral show here in Belfast Thursday a week ago and he set out various criteria. And the very first one, right at the top, time for Mr Adams to say: the war is over. He can say that, he is after all the leader of the Republican movement, which includes Sinn Fein and the IRA. It's time for him to say it. But, look, why are we wasting time on him. The important task, over the next four weeks, is to make sure that we now put in place a Northern Ireland assembly that will work. There will be people going there with the intention of making sure that it doesn't work and that includes Mr Adams, and of course we can fill in the names of the rest. The important task now is to bring on board, those who voted No last Friday. And here I am thinking of the forty-five per cent of Unionists who voted now. We had a Unionist majority on Friday, but we had a significant minority and there many of them are good people, who are concerned and have been misled by the people who've been giving them a false account of this agreement and spreading so many scare stories around. The time has come now to focus attention on them and to bring them on board. Mr Adams could help in that too, by saying that the war is over and there will be no return to violence and until he does that, Mr Adams is irrelevant to the next task which is that of making sure we have a sufficiently broadly based administration that does include that very important segment of our people here in Northern Ireland. HUMPHRYS: But he is entirely relevant to the next step after that, which is the setting up of an executive. Now... TRIMBLE: No, he's not even significant in that... HUMPHRYS: Well, come on if he isn't on that executive.. TRIMBLE: No, John, let's stop this myopia and let's focus on the really important thing. The really important thing is to make sure that we have a stable arrangement. Now we know that seventy-one per cent of the entire people-population of Northern Ireland, the electorate of Northern Ireland supported this. We know that ninety-five per cent of Nationlists have supported it. We have fifty-five per cent of Unionists, that's good. But we have to get better and that's where the focus should be. And on that issue, Mr Adams's activities have been entirely mischievous, deliberately so. It was he who orchestrated that extravaganza of celebration of terrorism with the Balcombe Street Gang for the purpose of winding up Unionists. Now, Mr Adams could stop the wind up and start to make a contribution. But, irrespective of whether he makes the contribution, we will focus on the really important job, which is bringing as many people together round this new beginning that is here for all of us and making sure that we have a stable base. We have taken an important step. We must follow it through, and we must bring on board those who have been misled about this agreement and who are fearful about the future. HUMPHRYS: I'll come to that in a minute if I may, but let's just deal with Mr Adams again for a moment. You say irrelevant, the fact is he will be, assuming the elections go ahead and they get the kind of support that you'd imagine they would on the basis of past performances. He will therefore qualify to sit on that executive. And the question is, whether, you would sit alongside him if real decommissioning, and the actual handing-over of weapons, not just stated intentions, had not begun. That's a crucial question, isn't it. Would you do that? TRIMBLE: Well, look, I've made this clear again and again and again. Go back to what the Prime Minister said at the Balmoral Show, the criteria he listed, starting with his clear statement that the war is over, including the necessary actions that flow from it, which include decommissioning, all these things have to be done and they must be done. This time, there must be no shirking. But look, again I come back to you John, Mr Adams can only command the support of something in the mid-teens, varying between fourteen and seventeen per cent, depending on turnout. HUMPHRYS: That would still give him a seat on the executive. TRIMBLE: And what about twenty-eight per cent. Darn sight more important than fourteen per cent. HUMPHRYS: Well as I said, I was coming to that. TRIMBLE: So consequently, I'm not, no, no, let's get back to this point. I don't know whether Dr Paisley has the stomach for much more politics, but if he has, then he might be entitled to a seat and he might have a better right to it than Mr Adams. So let's focus on those. We must not be driving people out into the cold. HUMPHRYS: No TRIMBLE: It's a question of making sure there is a broad enough base and the area where the work has now to be done, the area where the focus should be on. Where those who, at the moment lack confidence in this process. Now we want to build their confidence, and we want to bring them along with us because we need to have a stable base. HUMPHRYS: But there are those in your party who are still - in your party, not Ian Paisley's party - who are still dedicated to
- I quote one of them, Mr Thompson, frustrating the agreement. They want to get into that assembly, then they want to frustrate it. TRIMBLE: That's exactly the point that I'm making John, that there are people who will be going with the intention of wrecking. Now, let's not focus, let's not worry about the individualities. I mean poor Willy Thompson's got lots of problems, and I don't know that anyone will be able to put them right for the next election whether he stands or not. But we've got to look at the people who voted No, and they are a proportion of Ulster Unionist voters, not a very big proportion I have to say. We're quite comfortable within the party, within our own support, we've problems with individuals, but the party is pretty solid. But there is that segment of the electorate who've been fed various scare stories who lack confidence and who are worried. We have to address those worries, we have to show them that things are actually safe, and that we are building a secure basis for the future, and that has got to be the focus of the next four weeks. HUMPHRYS: So what are you going to do about the people in your own party who want to run on an Ulster Unionist ticket for the Assembly, knowing that when they get in, if they get into that assembly they want to frustrate the whole agreement. What do you do about them, how do you deal with them? TRIMBLE: We're a democratic party, we have our procedures, and constituencies will make their selections, and they'll be abiding by the normal practices and rules of the party, and so consequently I expect to see those procedures followed, and I expect to see people selected who will as is the normal course, give an undertaking to support the policies of this party and to abide loyally by the decisions of the party. HUMHRYS: And if they don't? TRIMBLE; Well, this is what I expect to see in terms of the selection procedures, and what I have seen so far of the constituency association fills me with confidence on this. HUMPHRYS: Right, so- TRIMBLE: Individuals who have had problems have to now consider what to do, and I must say if I can address some of my parliamentary colleagues who have had their doubts about this. During the referendum campaign they appealed to the precedent of the 1970s on the European election when the Labour Government was split, and had had a gentlemen's agreement that some people could pursue a Yes or a No vote depending on what their views were. But that at the end of the referendum they would all come back together again and loyally support the leadership of the party. Now those who appealed to that precedent should follow it. HUMPHRYS: But, those who don't - those who go in the other direction. The message is quite clear from you as the leader of the party, you don't want them on that ticket and you hope that their constituencies will not put forward candidates who are one hundred per cent behind you? TRIMBLE: It is essential at this time that we move into the Assembly with confidence and with coherence - that is what the Party wants to do and I am sure that it will and I think it's also important - and this is at the forefront of my mind - is that we bring with us as many as possible of that forty-five per cent of Unionists, twenty-eight per cent of the total Electorate, who demonstrated on Friday their lack of confidence in these arrangements and in the future. I believe that we can have confidence in these arrangements, I believe that we've got a stable basis, I think we've got to focus our attentions now on bringing them onboard. We don't want to marginalise that segment of opinion. HUMPHRYS: And many of those will no doubt want an answer to the question that I put to you earlier about whether you would sit with Gerry Adams in that Executive. It's hugely important for them. TRIMBLE: You, you've managed to bring it back to your King Charles' head, which has been dealt with and-and.... HUMPHRYS: Well, has it? Has it? Have we had a quite clear answer to that? I'm not sure that we have. TRIMBLE: You have and I'll have to say it again, the time has come for Mr Adams to deliver. HUMPHRYS: Indeed. TRIMBLE: To deliver. HUMPHRYS: Indeed but that still doesn't answer the question. What is the minimum you'd accept from Gerry Adams in order to sit with him at that Executive, at this stage? TRIMBLE: We go back to what the Prime Minister said in his Balmoral speech that we start off with a clear statement that this terrorist war, this squalid, dirty little terrorist war is over, that there's a commitment to peaceful means, there will be no return to violence; that the paramilitary apparatus will be set to one side and that's an end to all paramilitary activity and addressing the issue of disbanding that. Also addressing the issue of decommissioning by actually doing it, actually doing it. HUMPHRYS: Token or total? TRIMBLE: Over the course, over the course of the next six months these things must be done or else Mr Adams will start his Parliamentary apprenticeship on the Opposition Benches. HUMPHRYS: Doesn't the Agreement say over two years? TRIMBLE: No, it has to be completed over two years. HUMPHRYS: Right so if they had- TRIMBLE: And I am saying it has to be commenced in that period. HUMPHRYS: Okay, so if they were to hand in and let me-let me be a bit silly about it, if they were to hand in a couple of rusty old rifles as a token of decommissioning, you would say- TRIMBLE: You're at the wrong end of the scale again John. I started with the things that they have to say and do. Don't pick and choose on this and I come back to the point that you're on the wrong agenda. Be not concerned now about whether Mr Adams does or does not fulfil his obligations. That's for him to decide and we'll consider the consequences when the time comes. HUMPHRYS: Right. TRIMBLE: What the focus now must be over these next four or five months is to make sure we have a sound basis, a stable basis including all sections of the community and we must not allow this focus to be only on this little man and one's end of the spectrum and to ignore the much larger segment of opinion at the other end of the spectrum. That is where the focus should now be. HUMPHRYS: Just a sentence if I may on the marching season which is about to begin. Are you worried about that? TRIMBLE: Well I'm worried that Mr Adams will use that to cause more violence because I don't believe Mr Adams has yet sincerely accepted his obligations under this Agreement and I must say that to Republicans and to Nationlists that having come this far, don't allow the IRA to manipulate you into causing violence this summer. Proceeding normally as we used to do through the summer and allowing people to celebrate their own traditions in an appropriate way is a sign of normality, a sign of normality and if the Republican movement start to wind up things in the summer - as they have done the last couple of summers - there's another more evidence of their lack of sincerity. HUMPHRYS: David Trimble, many thanks. And that's it for this week, until next Sunday, good afternoon. ...oooOooo...