Part of the debate – in the House of Commons am 12:00 am ar 13 Rhagfyr 1973.
It is certainly not against the interests of the EEC. This is why I intervened during the speech of the hon. and gallant Member for Down, South (Captain Orr); and why if it were not so tragic it would be funny to remark that I was the Member for Sandy Row. I appreciate the spirit of what was meant by that, but the kind of society into which the provisional IRA cannot bomb and terrorise the Protestants but the British Government can economically, socially and politically coerce the Protestants is the kind of society that bodes well neither for them nor for us as ordinary working class people.
It is not the kind of society whereby the Irish people control their own future and destiny because we control our own economic and social future, but it is the kind of society where we sit like so many fools with a tricolour flying over 32 counties and English pound notes in every bank in the country. It is the kind of society in which the country is socially and economically controlled by Britain and, ultimately, from Brussels, and in which people are fooled into thinking that they are a sovereign and independent nation. Again, the two sides can be betrayed, because it is not as simple as saying, "If you please the hon. and gallant Gentleman you automatically displease me." I do not despite or hate the hon. and gallant Gentleman because he is a Protestant, an Orangeman or a Unionist. I do not despise anybody. I hate the system that has divided his people and mine. I hate the system that has kept all our people in economic and political subjection.
Loyalists got nothing out of Sunning-dale. They have got an enshrinement of doubt. They have got nothing on extradition. They have a Free Stater of one hue or another coming to sit on the police authority. They see this foreign body floating around the police authority. But is that reform? Am I being told that I ought to be pleased because some Gardaí "basher" comes up and joins the RUC "bashers" of the North? There is no difference, as far as I am concerned, between the way they run the RUC and the way they run the Gardaí. When I talk about reforming the RUC I mean reforming it from the bottom.
Where are the people who beat Sam Devenney senseless? Where are the people who mounted Browning submachine guns and went into the Catholic areas of Belfast? That is what I mean by reforming the police. I do not care whether it is Flanagan or anyone else at the top. I do not care about personalities or religion or the colour of the uniforms of the RUC. I care about the laws that they have to implement, the way they implement them, whether or not they are implemented fairly and whether the RUC as a body can be seen by all sections of the civilian population to be the referee and the custodian for protecting the rights of the individual and society as a whole. That will not be done by a few constitutional changes on the police authority and one or two Assembly men on the local bodies. The Loyalists are annoyed—