Part of the debate – in the House of Commons am 12:00 am ar 13 Rhagfyr 1973.
Until I heard some of the remarks of the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. McMaster) and the hon. Member for Windsor (Dr. Glyn), it had not been my intention to participate in this debate. In any event, I promise that I shall detain the House for only a few minutes.
It is inevitable that the debate should be as dull as it has been so far. The reason is that there is little opposition of the kind that we are used to when discussing Northern Ireland affairs. That is understandable.
It must be said, however, that everything in the garden is not exactly lovely. There are problems, and in the course of my remarks I intend to refer to one of two of them. Before I do that, I believe that it should be on record that recent developments have taken us a long way along the road from the very modest demands of the early civil rights campaign. Those of us who have taken an interest in the Province do not want to forget the strides made along the road that we began to take in those days. I have in mind the demands for "one man, one vote" and so on.
Despite many disagreements and many difficulties, we have arrived at the point where Stormont has gone. In addition, the Orange Order is probably more split than it has ever been, and, what is more, split into more different factions than it has ever been, thank God. That can only be an advance.