Paramilitaries must disarm, says Empey

Loyalist paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland must call it a day and begin disarmament, Ulster Unionist leader Sir Reg Empey said today.

In his first speech as leader to an Ulster Unionist conference, the former Stormont Economy Minister told delegates in Belfast the IRA had suffered a military defeat.

He said that meant loyalists no longer had any excuse to maintain their paramilitary structures.

The East Belfast Assembly member said: “Too many lives have been lost as rival groupings battle for supremacy.

“The pain they caused, and continue to cause, must end. Today, I make this direct appeal to these groups: call it a day!

“Begin the job of decommissioning the fire power that has brought so much misery.

“The republican edifice you swore to tear down is severely weakened.

“Northern Ireland is moving on apace and loyalist paramilitaries need to recognise that they no longer have any reason to maintain their structures.

“Engage with the Decommissioning Commission, place your arms beyond use and commit yourselves to exclusively peaceful and democratic means.”

Sir Reg said the IRA, which completed its disarmament programme almost four weeks ago, had done so in a curmudgeonly and mealy-mouthed way.

He added: “Let’s be clear about this: the Provos have suffered a military defeat.

“No victorious so-called army hands over weapons to a commission established by its enemy.

“Oh yes, they’ll still be around, doing a bit of enforcing here, a bit of smuggling there.

“For republicans who murdered, maimed, bombed and robbed for 35 years their needless and futile war is at an end.

“But generally speaking, they’ll become political just as others have and we in the Ulster Unionist Party and the DUP will have to deal with that reality.

“Let me say it again: The Provisional IRA has failed.”

Sir Reg said the IRA had been ground down by the perseverance and dogged determination of the security forces in Northern Ireland, by its failure to get the unionist community to bend to its wishes and by being left friendless, isolated and repudiated by an international community which was sick, sore and tired of terrorism in the wake of the 9/11 attacks in the United States.

The UUP leader said his main rivals, the Reverend Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionists would have their mettle tested in the coming months as never before having assumed the lead position in unionism.

In the two years since the DUP became Northern Ireland’s largest party in the Assembly elections, Sir Reg said republicans had been able to secure a tidal wave of concessions.

“It is nearly two years since the DUP assumed the mantle of the largest union party,” the East Belfast MLA said.

“In that time, instead of their promises being fulfilled, we have seen a tidal wave of concessions which continue to father momentum, a failed so-called comprehensive agreement in December last year where the DUP agreed in principle to enter government with Sinn Fein.

“After two years we still have no devolution.

“Sinn Féin, Downing Street and Dublin form the main decision-makes axis.

“Unionists are back where they started in the 1980s. All this concerns me greatly but Ian Paisley is fit to say that unionist confidence has never been higher! I don’t know where he is living at present.”

Sir Reg, who became UUP leader in June, acknowledged that his party’s performance in the British General Election and in the local government elections was awful.

The UUP lost four of its five Westminster seats and also 40 seats across councils in Northern Ireland.

He said the party was beginning to address the need for it to reform and deputy leader Danny Kennedy had been appointed to chair a reform group which would bring forward recommendations in March next year.

Work was also being undertaken to look at communication both internally and externally.

Sir Reg said the Union needed to be pitched to new audiences including young people, emigrants and those who had traditionally listened to a nationalist message.

“I am determined that we will not be written-off by those who seek to divide and destroy unionism,” he vowed.

“I can only restore the confidence and trust of the electorate in this party if you are with me.

“Together we can secure our cherished Union. We will settle for nothing less.

“In the slightly amended words of the current governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger: we’ll be back.”