In an exclusive interview with The Irish Times, the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, reveals an unprecedented British crackdown on loyalist paramilitaries and warns Sinn Féin it cannot hope to profit from continuing stalemate in Northern Ireland.
Prime Minister, you've said the IRA cannot continue half-in, half-out of the peace process, that there must now be acts of completion. Does that mean, as General de Chastelain has suggested, that the IRA must now commit to a verifiable and transparent process of decommissioning and disbandment?
What I have learnt about in this process is the use of words. Sometimes you can use words and they can end up being an obstacle to progress. But I think everybody knows what we are saying. What we are saying is this, that the process of transition is over. We cannot any longer have a situation where people are half-in, half-out. When I talk about acts of completion, what I mean is that we need to try and do this in a big step forward, where the British government fulfils its mandate, the paramilitaries realise that they can no longer use force in order to pursue political ends, and we reach a situation where Northern Ireland's politics do truly become normal, at least normal in the sense that there is no mixing of paramilitary activity and politics.
I think over the past few months everyone has reached the stage where they say, look there is no point in inching forward any more, there is no point in having another series of little itsy bitsy negotiations, let's work out whether people are really deciding they want this thing to happen or not. Now I want it to happen, I believe the unionists want it to happen, I know the SDLP do. I actually believe that the leadership of Sinn Féin do as well, but we have all got to realise that it is time to put the full cards on the table and get them cleared.
When unionists hear you reluctant to spell out your terms, they will worry that - though you say you can't have another inch by inch negotiation - you will inevitably be dragged into another exercise in peace process choreography?
Well we won't, that was the purpose of the speech. As I say, my reluctance to use certain words is that sometimes the words aren't helpful, but I can't be any clearer in saying that the process of transition is over. There has got to be no mixing of the paramilitary and the political.
And you know when people in Northern Ireland say but you let Sinn Féin away with it - I say look, the very reason why there has been now for the second time a suspension of the process is precisely because we haven't let them away with it.
Some would counter the only reason there has been a second suspension is because David Trimble couldn't sustain his position and that - even faced with alleged IRA espionage, the compilation of prison officers' names and addresses and so on - you would still have been prepared to show the yellow rather than the red card?
I believe that is unfair. Of course it is true that David Trimble made his own position clear, but I don't think there was much room for doubt in the speech I gave a short time afterwards. The fact is all sorts of options could have been open to the British government, we have chosen the route that we have taken.
People also sometimes say to me, well look there is a contrast between you getting really heavy on al-Qaeda or Saddam Hussein while you are negotiating with Sinn Féin. My answer to that is every situation is different. What you have got to work out is whether there are aims that people can pursue that are politically reasonable, not in the sense that I may agree with them but they are within the normal ambit of politics, and is it possible to get them to pursue those political aims in an exclusively peaceful manner. The answer with al-Qaeda or Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction is no, there is no meeting point at all. The answer with Sinn Féin is yes, it is perfectly possible for them to pursue the aims of equality and justice, recognition of the nationalist identity in Northern Ireland, provided they recognise what they cannot any longer do is pursue those aims by violence.
I think it is interesting this time that with the institutions suspended there is a political crisis but not a security crisis. I don't think six years ago that would have happened.
You've said the IRA, everybody indeed, must take big steps forward. Let me put two reasons why the IRA might not comply. First, within their own communities the demand may be that they resist you because Catholics are subject to ongoing loyalist violence, and because there does not appear to be a corresponding British demand that the loyalist paramilitaries also disband?
It is understandable that that feeling is around, but it is comprehensively wrong. First let me make it clear that the activities of the loyalist paramilitaries are not just totally and completely contrary to law, but contrary to any decent sense of humanity. The only difference is that the loyalist paramilitaries are not connected to political parties and government, that is why there is a different situation there. But in terms of the paramilitary activity, of course it has got to cease and cease entirely. The other thing that I would say to you - and you can see this from that appalling attack over the weekend (the "crucifixion") which made me physically sick - these people have to realise we are going to come down on them with every single bit of force and authority we possibly can. The new Chief Constable is absolutely determined to do that. We have already I think arrested 60 or more of these people and they are going to be treated for what they are, which is common criminals. We are not going to play around with it at all or negotiate with it or give any quarter to it at all.
Are we witnessing the beginning of a qualitatively different crackdown on loyalist paramilitaries?
I believe that we are, yes. There are two things that we have got to do. We have got to resolve this political crisis. And actually part of resolving it, is to come to the point where we treat paramilitaries as criminals. Of course their activity has been criminal, is criminal. But I think now there is actually an acceptance across the spectrum in Northern Ireland that that is precisely how it should be treated.
But the second reason republicans may not be compliant is because of their belief - notwithstanding what you said in Belfast - that it is the threat of violence which gives them leverage. Indeed many others besides believe this is the essence of any peace process between the IRA and a British government. Isn't the fact of the matter that for that reason you can never really treat Sinn Féin as you would any other normal political party?
That is a very good point and I agree it is the nub of the issue. And what has changed is that everybody in Northern Ireland who has always been part of democratic politics recognises that as you get the peace process under way, you don't have the Belfast Agreement one day, and total peace the next. They realise there will be a process under which you leave violence behind. What has really happened is that, in part frankly because of the advances Sinn Féin have made democratically, people are now at the point where they say well hang on, I am sorry, everyone has got to play by the same rules. Now if everyone is not going to play by the same rules, there is nothing we can do about that, but you can't have a peace process except on the basis that everyone does play by the same rules. So whatever the position in the past was about leverage, whatever their feelings that this is necessary for the leverage, it isnow the obstruction.
Because what is preventing me doing the acts of completion for the British government? The continuing existence of this paramilitary activity. What is the thing that has actually made David Trimble get out of the Executive? The existence of the paramilitary activity. What is the thing that prevents unionist opinion coming behind an agreement that in the end is perfectly good for the people of Northern Ireland? Paramilitary activity. So whatever the past has been and whatever people's feelings - well, this keeps the British government up to the mark, makes them realise they have got to watch us and all the rest of it - you know we can speculate on that, I can give you my views and other people can give you theirs. Today, there is no doubt in my mind, it is the opposite of leverage, it is actually an obstacle, it is an obstruction to the process.
Let's test that in two ways. If they don't comply, what is your sanction against them?
Well it is not so much a sanction against them, it is that the political process can't move forward. That is not to say people are not entitled to equality before the law, fairness and all the rest of it in any event. But it is far more difficult for us to make political progress in for example a power-sharing Executive, in having decisions taken by people in Northern Ireland, in having Ministers from all the different communities, if that commitment to exclusively peaceful means isn't there.
So it is not so much a sanction. When I walked out of the building after my speech the other week there were some republicans there with a placard saying "Say no to the unionist veto", and I felt like saying look, the trouble with this process is that everyone has got a veto. It can't move unless people want it to move.
That brings me to the second test. You say not so much a sanction but that the process can't move forward. Some people will be reluctant to believe that because there is a widespread suspicion that republicans think themselves in a win-win situation.
That's to say, if the present Agreement fails, nationalist Ireland as a whole will regroup and press for an alternative solution in the form of joint British-Irish authority. In your Balmoral speech in 1998 you said there would be no question of any imposed solution. Can you confirm that that remains your position?
I can, yes. You know people can fall for this delusion again that somehow you can have a lasting peace in Northern Ireland without the main elements of the political parties involved in it.
You can't. That is the reality. And my view is, and again I think this is different, that that reality is understood by all the main political parties. You see the advantage I have is that I meet these people the whole time, I talk to them, have got to know them very well. I have got to know them better than many people who are supposed to be my own political colleagues. I have worked with them a long period of time, and what often happens is that they end up deeply suspecting the other side's motives in almost identical terms. So republicans will tell you, well David Trimble is not really interested, he wants the whole thing brought down because he really wants unionist supremacy back and all the rest of it. I know that is not true, I just know it is not true.
Look, for whatever reason and whatever the history of it, he has come to the view that the only viable future for Northern Ireland is a future in which people are treated equally. That is his view. And he will often come to me and say oh, look, this is all a sly game by Adams and McGuinness, what they really want is to trick everyone into a situation where you end up with a solution being imposed by the British government. You can't impose a solution in this situation.
So in terms of any hope there may be within the republican or wider nationalist community - that failure to restore the Belfast Agreement leads incrementally over a period of time to joint British-Irish authority - you rule that out?
There is no way that we can go back to that as a solution to a set of circumstances in which the political parties come to an agreement. That is why I said to you everyone has got a veto on this situation and all we can do as the British government, or the Irish government for that matter, is to facilitate. In the end, and this is one of the things I want to say to people in Northern Ireland, there is a tendency sometimes for everyone to turn round and say, well, what is the British government going to do about it, what is the Irish government going to do about it. Look, we can do certain things but I can't make this work without willing partners, and those willing partners have got in the end to come together themselves. So if there is an impasse here as a result of confusion over paramilitary and political ends, there is no way I can cook up some solution with the Irish government and slam it down. It is not going to work.
You've also said you will not countenance a renegotiation of the agreement. But consent freely given can surely be withdrawn. If you go ahead with an Assembly election and a majority of unionists back parties committed to renegotiate, isn't the reality that you would have to go back to the drawing board?
You've always got to take account of the reality of the political circumstances, that is true. But I come back to the point I made to you a moment or two ago, I can only facilitate agreement, I can't force people to agree. And just so that people understand this - when people sometimes say, ah well, what we want is not this Belfast Agreement but a different agreement, and I say to them well, fine, you go ahead and negotiate that then - you are going to be ending up negotiating with exactly the same people, and that is what we were doing. So there is not some magic trick that can be taken here where suddenly everyone wheels into a different position. The fact is you will come back to the same issues to be dealt with in the same way. And at the heart of the Belfast Agreement, whatever adjustments we made along the way, is essentially this deal, that in return for equality and justice and recognition of the nationalist identity, then Northern Ireland shall remain part of the Union as long as the majority of people there wish it.
But you don't dispute that its continuation rests upon the enduring consent of a majority of both communities in Northern Ireland? In the end that is the reality, isn't it?
Look, we will implement whatever measures we in the British government can implement that are right in their own terms, for example equality and justice and human rights and so on. It is important that we do that in any event, that is something that is the right of anyone who lives inside the UK. But I can't restore a power-sharing Executive, that part of the political process, that can't be done unless the parties themselves want it.
You've said you believe the IRA is further away from war than ever. But post-September 11th - given the climate that now exists and that you, with President Bush, have helped create - do you believe that returning to the war actually remains an option for Irish republicans?
In the end that is a decision for them, isn't it.
But could they get away with it?
I don't think there is any mileage in it any more. You are right, the world has changed.
People just have a different attitude towards terrorism today, they recognise it as a global threat, and the attitude in America is completely different. There was genuine outrage at any association of the IRA and FARC, because people know what FARC is, which is an absolutely appalling sort of narco-terrorist organisation. My view is that Adams and McGuinness know all that perfectly well. And I have said this before and I believe it, I think they are committed to the peace process, they know it is the only future for republicanism, there is no future in terrorism. And that is the other thing that has changed. It is not just that as the process has gone on people have come to a view that the process of transition has got to be over, it is also that the terms of debate have changed post-September 11th. There is no support for it anywhere, there is no real inclination to excuse it any more. I never did excuse it, but I think there were parts of the political spectrum, themselves respectable, who kind of excused it or said, well, we sort of understand why it is happening. It is just not the case any more. You look at Spain in relation to ETA, you look at the activities of the terrorists around the world linked to al-Qaeda, you look at the attitude of the US.
No-one is going to put up with it any more, and so there is no mileage in it. The only question in the end is can reactionary elements, who can't see the world has changed, can they drag the whole thing backwards or do we, as I say, get to the acts of completion that lets everyone see that we all mean it. Because we do mean it. I genuinely want this whole thing to work and I am prepared to do whatever it takes on the part of the British government to fulfil our obligations completely. But I need to know I have got a willing partner, and that is what the whole thing is about.
You've had the first instalment of Mr Adams' response. Do you think he has got the message that it is a case of big steps now?
I believe so, yes, because I think that they want that too. They know that it is not now about symbolic acts or gestures, it is about are we a normal political situation or not. You can't have a situation - you can understand why historically these things happen, but you have reached the point at which it is no longer acceptable that they do - whether it is people being beaten up on the basis that they are alleged to be drug dealers or whatever, or playing around with paramilitary activity the world over, there is no support for it, there is no future in it. And in the end people on the island of Ireland know that too. That is why there was such huge support in the Republic of Ireland for this peace process, That is why Bertie Ahern has been a tremendous partner in this process, he recognises that too. And you know I think that that is the common ground now and the rest is about political leadership and vision.