Monday 15 February 1999 see Hansard Northern Ireland Assembly

Mr David Ervine:

As a well-known "traitor" and "betrayer", I support the motion. My party has some reservations, some of which were outlined by Mr Cedric Wilson and, indeed, by the leader of the Alliance Party. The two large parties need to be aware that consultation does not simply mean having a chat and then doing what one wants to do anyway. Cognisance needs to be taken of that. It is important to look at how far we have come before we consider jettisoning our desire, our vision for the future, to join those who at some point it may be worthwhile considering using parliamentary privilege against. This has been building and building, and I am getting pretty sick of it. I emphasise the word "hypocrites", and if they want to raise points of order during my speech I am happy that you facilitate them, Mr Initial Presiding Officer.

They need to remember, when they talk about honour, integrity and decency, how many of them had long and meaningful debates with me � when I was a representative not of the Progressive Unionist Party but of the Ulster Volunteer Force � in meetings all over the country and, indeed, in some of their houses. I do not want to do it, nor do I want to give Nationalism or Republicanism a cudgel with which to beat Unionism, but I am not prepared to see the holier-than-thou attitude prevail.

I am neither a traitor nor a betrayer. I have a view that is different to theirs, and I may have reason for it to be different. It may be because of my sense of betrayal, or my sense of people having sent me, assisted me, talked to me, came with me part of the way, and then betrayed me. They washed their hands of people. They shout at Sinn F�in so that their constituency might see it. The cry might be "We beat them to death with DUP manifestos". Who are they kidding? They talk about the seriousness of what faces this country.

The reality is we have come a long way. The ceasefires may not be perfect, but they are in place. Many make use of television or other media to criticise those who take serious risks, and all of that as the words "traitor" and "betrayer" are ringing in the ears of those with whom they have to work. I ask them to think very carefully about who they describe as being a traitor or betrayer. They should think very carefully when I lay my life on the line, which I am prepared and happy to do � not for the first time, I might add � for my country, and I do so in the belief that we can make a difference. Not that it will stay the same. I do not ever want it to stay the same, and if it were wonderful it would not be good enough � it would have to be better.

I believe and hope that that is the nature of politics. It is supposed to be made better by politicians. The louder the complaining, the more I concentrate on the paramilitary groups, the drug gangs, the house-breaking gangs � all the difficulties in this society, such as the massive number of one-parent families, the near meltdown of the agricultural economy, the situation where Christians make a virtue of hatred and where politicians have no art, rather than making politics the art of the possible. I wonder if I am alone in wanting it to be different. Am I alone in wanting it to change?

We have come a long, long way. There have been changes, even in the ideology, that people may not have recognised because they cannot see the wood for the trees. For them to identify the shifts or changes or schisms that exist between the ideology and the political reality of Sinn F�in would be an admission that perhaps there is hope, and they would not want there to be hope.

They walk past Carson, under Britannia; they sit in this House talking; they tore up the "green book", but not many of them took the trouble to read it until recently, when they got elected and got the opportunity to let on that they had read it. They have no concept of the changes that can take place, of the will of the people, the desire of the people to live in peace.

I understand. Contrary to popular opinion, I do not live in "leafy land"; I have one small Housing Executive house, and I live in a solidly Loyalist housing estate. I have not had anybody shouting abuse at me. I wonder why.

Could it be that they are all so fearful for the future of society that they are not telling me? They could always hide behind hedges and bushes, but they do not. And that tells me something: they are searching for, lusting after, some kind of better opportunity for the future.

All of us may be frightened. As we are in uncharted waters, why would we not be? No matter what tributary you face in life, the fear of getting it wrong is natural � of course it is � but you will never make anything or do anything unless you examine and explore the opportunities for the future. That is what we did in Castle Buildings. But there were those who would not even explore the opportunities for the future.

Listen to the opportunities for the future and then retreat if you will. But they would not even listen. And they did not listen because the fiefdom might be challenged, the fiefdom that has them shouting and screaming at Sinn F�in only for the television.

What they are really trying to do is upset the Ulster Unionists and turn themselves into the leaders of Unionism. Some of them want to be that; others are "cul-de-sac" politicians. I repeat what I said in October: there are two forms of "cul-de-sac" politicians � those who cannot and will not come out of the "cul-de-sac" and those who live in a "cul-de-sac" and are frightened that somebody is looking through the venetian blinds and saying "That is the one who let Gerry Adams into government." That is the fear � the fear for themselves. They cannot be afraid for their children or grandchildren or they would be thinking about the future; they would have vision.

If we do not test Sinn F�in and the Provos, we will never know. We will have consigned this territory that we all profess to love to constant, bitter and brutal feuding until somebody with wisdom comes along and does something different. When the brutality has begun and we have begun to venerate the victims, we will be unable to stop the war. I have heard that from many people here; I have walked behind the coffins; I have had family members killed, and, indeed, there have been attempts on my own life. If all we had done was venerate the victims, how would we have ended the Second World War? How would we have gone on to have relationships with people that fought with my father, for instance? How often has it been said that soldiers fight only to end wars, not to perpetuate them? A battle or a conflagration must end or the value in that conflagration only exists in having it.

There is a genuine opportunity to begin to use the process that we put together in Castle Buildings to deliver � to deliver the end of punishment beatings, to deliver decommissioning, to deliver accountable democracy, to deliver all of the things that every constituency signed up to, or it is not worth the paper it is written on.

But it is about more than that; it is about healing relationships, not only the fractured relationships between the North and the South and between east and west, but also the fractured relationships that have borders at the end of every street in some constituencies.

All that has to be begun, and if we cannot or are not prepared to set an example but are prepared only to chide and cough and play games, we will not get off first base.

Those with large egos who defecate from a great height will undoubtedly tell us that vision which is not founded in their sense of democracy is not vision at all. If our troubles were a couple of days old we could begin the process of putting the wrongs right. We could say that one thing happened as a reaction to another and attempt to put it right and seek apologies. But we have had 30 years of this, and if we play the game of constantly harking back � today we were as far back as 1967 � there will be no future, and those who advocated no and who want collapse at every turn have their part to play.