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Northern Ireland Bill

That is exactly one of those questions that we shall have to continue to observe very carefully in forthcoming weeks and months. I have been told in my conversations with senior police officers and others that they believe that the leadership of Sinn Fein and the Provisional IRA still retains control over, leadership of, the great bulk of those who have been followers of the Provisional IRA in the past, and there has been some splintering, but we are not yet facing the kind of split in republicanism that we saw in the conflict between the provisionals and the officials in the late 1960s. I will be guided very much by the information that I get from police officers, Army officers and other such sources about what is happening within republicanism. I was speaking a moment ago about loyalist paramilitaries. I wanted to say to the Secretary of State that he has our support in his efforts to end loyalist violence, and I support without reservation his call to the loyalist paramilitaries to stop the crime and the violence in which they are engaged and to decommission their weapons. I would only add—I am sure that the Secretary of State agrees with me—that the police and the Assets Recovery Agency should continue to pursue remorselessly those paramilitaries who defy the law rather than abandon lawlessness in favour of democracy. But the focus has to be primarily on republicanism because of the strength of the electoral support that Sinn Fein now enjoys, and it seems to me that there are three questions that have to be asked about republicanism. The first is whether the provisionals as an organised movement have ceased all involvement in crime. While the IMC has certainly reported progress, the hon. Member for South Antrim (Dr. McCrea) and others, in interventions, have also pointed to those paragraphs in the report that indicate that other members of the provisional movement, including some senior members, are still engaged in criminality. The Secretary of State made quite a lot of the difference between the approach of the leadership and the actions of a minority of members of the Provisional IRA. I accept the distinction as a matter of principle, but I think it is fair for all of us to challenge republicans by saying, ““If you are sincere in your commitment to break finally and irrevocably with crime, we want to know that you are taking action to stop those rogue elements.”” And that does not mean the sort of alternative disciplinary methods that we have seen far too much of from paramilitary groups on both sides; it means a willingness to engage with the legitimate criminal justice system and police force so that those renegades can be brought to justice and further crimes prevented. So the second challenge to the provisionals is to support the police and the courts and the rule of law. I did note that the IMC, in paragraph 2.19, states that it believes that the leadership of the provisionals"““has accepted the need to engage in policing if it is to achieve its aim of devolution of policing and justice””," but the IMC continues:"““The issue is still very controversial on the ground and has not been resolved to date within PIRA despite robust discussion.””" I think we need to move beyond robust discussion and we need to be clear that Sinn Fein, if it is to be treated equally as a democratic party, is accepting the norms of democratic discourse, and that support for the police and the rule of law is not some optional extra—it is integral to accepting the rules of the democratic game. I took a measure of encouragement from the IMC’s comment in paragraph 2.20, when it quoted Mr. Martin McGuinness as saying, in the context of a lorry hijack in March in the Irish Republic, that"““anyone involved in activity of this nature, no matter what political party they support, needs to be arrested, charged and brought to court before a jury of their peers.””" Those are good words. Let us now see those words being translated into action by Sinn Fein leaders to say to their followers that it is time for them to give evidence of crime to the police and the other parts of the criminal justice system.