LONDON LETTER:Ian Paisley is getting ready to leave the House of Commons after 40 years. He departs in a far mellower humour than when he arrived, writes MARK HENNESSY
IN HIS first words to the House of Commons on July 3rd, 1970, the Rev Ian Paisley spoke in anger. Yesterday, in his final ones, he spoke quietly, receiving words of approval from a House that has not often seen eye-to-eye with him.
Looking back on the Hansard transcripts from that far-off day, it is striking to see both how far the former Democratic Unionist Party leader has travelled and how late in the day he began the journey.
Paisley first won the North Antrim seat, one he held in every election subsequently, on June 18th, 1970, when he defeated Ulster Unionist Henry Maitland Clark – a former colonial officer in Tanganyika and a relative of the then-prime minister of Northern Ireland, James Chichester-Clark – by nearly 3,000 votes.
Forgetting about the usual plaudits traditionally offered to a predecessor, Paisley, to the irritation it seems of many of those sitting that day on the Commons’ green leather benches, could not help but crow about his victory: “I came to this House having smashed the 23,000 majority of a sitting Unionist member,” he said triumphantly.
On the Saturday before his maiden speech, an Orange Order parade, which had been partially rerouted by police, had been attacked at the junction of Mayo Street and the Springfield Road in Belfast by republicans.
What, he asked, was meant by freedom under the law? “Does it mean that there is freedom to throw stones, to use petrol bombs and to use guns and to know that the more stones you throw, the more petrol bombs you use, the more people are slaughtered, the more you will be heeded and hearkened to and the more the concessions which you want will be given to you?
“It is this pernicious principle which has bedevilled the scene in Northern Ireland. There are people who think that the more they agitate and the more they march and cause confusion, riot and anarchy, the more they will get from the government of Northern Ireland and from the government here in Westminster.”
In 1968, he said, SDLP MP Gerry Fitt had said that he was “prepared to go outside constitutional methods” if “constitutional methods do not bring social justice, if they do not bring democracy to Northern Ireland”.
If any MP, Paisley went on, “set themselves out on a career of attack on the forces of the crown, then, when they are apprehended, brought before the courts, tried and found guilty, no matter who they are, they must bear the full rigour of the law”.
The irony contained within both passages has not been lost on many in Northern Ireland and elsewhere in the decades since, given Paisley’s past tendency to resort to threats, if not action, in pursuit of his demands.
Standing on a makeshift reviewing stand in 1981, for example, Paisley reviewed some 5,000 members of the shadowy Third Force in Newtownards, wearing orange armbands bearing “For God and Ulster”.
He said: “My men are ready to be recruited under the crown to destroy the vermin of the IRA, but if the crown refuses to recruit them, then we will destroy the IRA ourselves.”
The fiery Free Presbyterian preacher’s first Commons contribution was not to the taste of many, outraged that he ignored the long-held practice to be neither confrontational nor ungracious on a maiden outing.
On Monday, Paisley, speaking for the last time during a Commons debate on Northern Ireland, said he had sat in 1970 as near the door of the chamber “as I could, because I thought that I might be kicked out. I was grateful that people started to think that we must have an end to this matter and that we could not go on with part of the United Kingdom torn by such violence.”
The implication that he had been the one to lead the drift to peace, and that progress only occurred when others agreed with his views, will be questioned by many, no matter how gladdened they are by the result.
Ever theatrical, Paisley had no intention of letting yesterday’s prime minister’s questions pass without a final contribution, although it could hardly count as a question.
“This is the last time I will bother the House and the prime minister with a question – I am sure he is greatly relieved about that.
“This is a sad and tragic hour in our nation and rumours of war and wars are common. There is sorrow in hearts. Of course, people bury their dead; they put up their monument, but their heart is torn. I have been in too many houses like that in the North of Ireland not to know how deep the cuts are.
“In view of the situation that we have here, and its sadness and its sorrow, and the dark shadow that lies upon the whole of our world today, I ask the prime minister to continue to give himself, as always, to the task of deliverance and victory and peace – and may it come speedily,” he said.
The House murmured its approval and moved on.