The Other View

in discussion with  Cameron Mitchell & David McCombe 

Policing
TOV: What underlies Unionist fears about the new policing arrangements?
EB: There are legitimate fears out there amongst the public about some kind of corruption of the forces of law and order - that they will be taken over by those formerly challenging those forces and indeed who worked against the good of society as a whole"
TOV: Should ex-paramilitaries be able to apply?
EB: People with criminal convictions are meant to be excluded under the new arrangements and with the possible exclusion of those from a criminal background - but there are certain problems in defining exactly what that might mean.
Obviously one of the problems about policing is the amount of confidence people place in it. There is especially a confidence issue from the Nationalist point of view. But I don't think the right way forward is to open up membership of the PSNI to people who have been convicted of paramilitary offences"
TOV: Should political parties who have paramilitary connections be allowed to join the Police Board; would you encourage Sinn Fein to join?
EB: Well, if they were to participate there would have to be a change in their attitude. At the moment they have refused to make that change and have taken the easy option of criticising from the sidelines. It would obviously help policing if the political consensus behind the legitimacy of the service was a wide as possible. Yes, if Sinn Fein were to become a genuine constitutional and democratic party. This is one of a number of things that they have to do as part of their process of change and normalisation".
TOV: Why then should ex-paramilitaries be excluded from the PSNI ?
EB: I think there is a distinction between those who actually enforce the law on the ground and those who have political oversight of the PSNI. I think the public has to believe that those who enforce the law are separated from criminal activity - and not just paramilitary activity but ordinary criminality as well. You might perceive a contradiction if those with a political oversight also have such connections but we have this problem throughout the process in Northern Ireland and at the end of the day we have a democratic society. If people are electing politicians from that type of background, that is what the system produces and to a degree you have to work with that".
TOV: How does it affect the Chief Constable's role if there is political consensus?
EB: The new Chief Constable will have to work out his relationship with the Police Board. It is potentially a very positive dimension to the job - in the long run it may make the Chief Constables job easier if he has a broad political consensus behind him.
TOV: Are there any constraints in having political consensus?
EB: It would be a mistake if the Chief Constable spent most of his working day answering solely to the Police Board rather than putting his time into the job itself. The politicians only set the general oversight - the police make the day-to-day decisions. Other countries in Europe and America have a different approach to the way politicians and the police interact. But I think, in principle, the British constitutional approach is the right one".

Border Poll
TOV: Would you support a Border Poll in the near future?
EB: There seems to be some sort of bandwagon at the moment coming from some nationalists and republicans about the inevitability of a United Ireland - which then in turn produces a reaction within unionism - perhaps the bandwagon is produced for that very intent. My own analysis is that it is not a likelihood in the short-term. A lot of the speculation is very poorly based. There is merit in a border poll to try and settle what the position is currently, and hopefully take the wind out of this speculation.
TOV: Should there be a border poll every seven years?
EB: The Belfast Agreement doesn't say that if you have one you have to have one seven years later. My understanding of it is that the Secretary of State should call one if he feels there is a need to call one, because there is some doubt about what result it would produce. The thinking of David Trimble when he suggested the idea was that there will be one in 2003 and the result would come out a certain way - and I think he is right in that respect – it would certainly show a large unionist majority and that would put an end to this subject in practical terms for the foreseeable future.
TOV: If the majority of population are predicting the outcome – is it not a waste of taxpayers money?
EB: Well, maybe in an ideal world it wouldn¹t be necessary, but as I said, there has been a lot of speculation and comments about a United Ireland within the next few years. It is in the public domain and it is creating great angst in many communities. We need to deal with the issue, get it out of the way and return to normal politics again.

Middle East
TOV: Have you any thoughts on the crisis in the Middle East?
EB: I am not going to be naive enough to suggest a solution to the Middle-East conflict, it is easy to make comments from the outside - maybe we have suffered from that here, we have people coming in from different parts of the world telling us how to run our peace process. Sometimes comments are helpful, sometimes they aren't.
In the case of Israel and Palestine, I really do feel the blame is equally distributed between Arafat and Ariel Sharon. In one sense they are well matched but it is a tragedy that so many innocent people are caught in the crossfire. I don't think Sharon's methods are going to work and equally Arafat is complicit. My solution would be the two-states model - there should be a Palestinian state but obviously there should also be the Israeli state.
How you manage the ownership of Jerusalem is always going to be difficult because of the religious sites there. But in principle there are ways of doing that. Though I fear the bloodshed will continue".
TOV: Can they learn anything from our process?
EB: I am sceptical as to what extent lessons can be transferred from one country to another. I suppose the broad point is that here in Northern Ireland we did collectively decide to try and talk and use the constitutional method. It may have been an imperfect transition and there is still a lot of room for improvement but what is happening in Israel and Palestine shows us the awfulness if we get it wrong.
TOV: Could Britain and America do more to ease the violence?
EB: I think Bush was right to call for an immediate withdrawal²
TOV: Was that enough?
EB: I know that some people called for immediate sanctions and they also argue that there is an inconsistency in their policy, perhaps as they had in relation to Iraq - but there again each case is unique. The Israeli and Palestinian case is equal blame. Therefore I am not sure whether applying sanctions - whatever form they could take against Israel - would necessarily be effective or appropriate.

Capital Punishment
TOV: Do you support Capital Punishment?
EB: In principal - I do support capital punishment. I know there are problems in the United States judicial system and how it works in practice. For example, defence lawyers for those people who are charged with murder in America are often not very good usually because the defendants are from a poor background - so there is a sort of imbalance and lack of justice in the fairness of the trials. Though in principal, there are occasions were people have committed murders that were so horrendous that a just outcome would be their own life.
TOV: Is America's war on terrorism right? - Giving that they put a price on Bin Laden's head?
EB: Obviously there are dangers in over-reacting or using the wrong tactics. Winston Churchill once said that  "As between the fire and the fire brigade you cannot be neutral"- so I think it is important sometimes for governments to draw a line and say that certain standards in behaviour are not acceptable. There are rogue regimes out there such as Iraq and North Korea that are developing a growing capacity for wrecking havoc. There are also international terrorist networks like the Al Quaida. So not only are there the moral terms but also the pragmatic issue about public safety. You need to act before they act against you.
But also you need to very careful in the way you do it. Bush did show care in constructing an international coalition.
TOV: Should more be done concerning Irish terrorists and their connections to international terrorism?
EB: Possibly yes, though in a sense the decisive pressure in the likes of the IRA's connections to the FARC was to the USA. This pressure is ongoing - as we have seen in the summons of Gerry Adams to the House of Representatives to be cross-examined on the linkage. The IRA's linkage was of huge significance because it brought home to both the American Government and the American public that there was an impact on their own homeland indirectly by the IRA activities.

Faith and Politics
TOV: As a Christian, how does your faith inform your politics?
EB: I am from a reformed or Calvinistic theological perspective which has had an influence on my political beliefs and approach, although I do recognise that other Christians come to different conclusions politically. At one point I did say I was a liberal conservative - I believe that individual human beings are created to exercise freedom - that would be the liberal side. The conservative side, I would say, is that I believe in the Christian tradition of the 'fall' or original sin, in other words the flaw in human nature.
TOV: How does your faith impact on your work as a politician?
EB: I hope my faith affects the way and the manner I conduct my politics, particularly the way I treat people, but I suppose that is really for other people to judge how successful that is. George Orwell once wrote that one of the worst advertisements for both Socialism and Christianity were their own adherents, which has probably been true in Northern Ireland in respect to Christianity in which some people may show very poor charitable attitudes.
TOV: Referring back to the Israel question, there are some Protestants who feel that there is a divine mandate or sanction for what Israel is doing.
EB: I don't agree with that. All states are subject to God's standards to be fair and righteous in how they rule. So I tend to take a different view from a number of evangelical Protestants in Northern Ireland who do seem to take a very pro-Zionist point of view. The Old Testament prophecies are being fulfilled in the worldwide and multinational church.
TOV: How does your faith help you day by day?
EB: Like many people I have my ups and downs – having a strong faith is not incompatible with having doubts or having questions. There are things that I do not or will not understand and there are many areas in which I struggle. I think that politics is almost inevitably about trading things off; you can never get all the good things you want. For example, to have more peace you have to give up some degree of justice or to have more justice you have to fight for it. So politics is often about scales and balancing things up.

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