The following is an edited version of the address by the SDLP leader, Mr John Hume, to his party's conference in Belfast:
The last number of years have been a crucial time in our history. The present time is very crucial and our present conference gives us a timely and important opportunity to discuss our situation in depth.
Our party has not been a party of government or of opposition. We are a party, born out of the civil rights movement, whose entire existence has been devoted to resolving the serious problems of our society. To solve our problem one must first define it and then pursue the methods of resolving it. The SDLP's analysis of our fundamental problem was somewhat different from the traditional and emotional analysis of other parties and recognised that a changed world had also changed the nature of the problem. Whatever about the past, we argued that today's problem is that we are a deeply divided people and that our divisions relate to three sets of relationships, within the North, North-South and British-Irish. Given that, the best possible way of solving that problem is for the British and Irish governments to devote their energies and resources together with the parties in the North to achieving agreement and to do so in a totally peaceful atmosphere.
The SDLP has worked steadily and consistently over the years to achieve that strategy as our record shows. Indeed in order to underline the progress made, who could have forecast a few years ago that the two governments, the Ulster Unionist Party, SDLP, Sinn Fein, PUP, UDP and other parties would be in the same room at Stormont with the three sets of relationships as the central agenda. In spite of enormous difficulties and setbacks we have stayed steadily on course and we will continue to do so in spite of the difficulties that lie ahead.
This conference comes at an opportune moment for taking stock of where we are in the multi-party talks and looking at the task which still lies before us. In focusing on the problems that remain to be overcome, however, we should not forget the progress that has been made in getting here, particularly in the year since our last conference. Sometimes looking back helps to remind you that you are indeed moving forward.
I spoke to you then of the time-consuming but critical work of overcoming, one by one, the obstacles that either arose or were placed in the path of truly inclusive negotiations. I and many other speakers appealed especially for a renewal of the IRA ceasefire which had transformed the political and popular mood, and allowed for perhaps the first time for real hope for an end to the long conflict which has caused only suffering to both sections of our people.
The hopes we expressed then have been realised, and our efforts at the talks have entered a new and critical phase. For the first time, all democratic political parties were invited to sit down together and work for a solution, and for the first time there is no major party in these islands which is not committed to exclusively peaceful and democratic means of seeking its objectives. The acceptance by all parties, including Sinn Fein, of the Mitchell Principles was a truly ground-breaking moment in Irish politics, as well as the coming together at one table shortly afterwards of the two governments, the major unionist party, ourselves, Sinn Fein, the loyalists and other parties.
Now all those parties gathered at Stormont are publicly committed to actively seeking an agreement which will be acceptable to both communities. There can be no stronger basis for lasting peace and stability.
In the painstaking and often frustrating process which has led to this stage, the SDLP, which has always looked and worked for a solution negotiated on the basis of inclusion and of peaceful means, and one acceptable to both communities, has played a central role of which we can be proud. We have never wavered from our commitment to opposing the futility of political and sectarian violence, but neither have we ever been content with the ending of violence and the continuation of the status quo. Our objective has always been the conclusion of an agreement which would put our past behind us. I believe that despite all the difficulties that remain ahead we have never been so close to the realisation of our dream.
Many others have also played their part, of course. There is no doubt that the election of the new British Labour government in May gave a renewed and vital impetus to the peace process. It was a significant factor in the renewal of the IRA ceasefire in July. A new government with a strong majority is able to make an active and constructive engagement in the process. I have been heartened also by the personal commitment to the process shown by the Prime Minister. I believe that his setting of May of next year as the objective for the completion of the talks has helped and will help to concentrate minds and efforts.
The Westminster elections in May saw the SDLP, despite strong competition, achieve our highest ever share of the total vote. As party leader, my satisfaction at that result was of course tempered by the loss of a valued colleague in Joe Hendron, to whose past and continuing commitment to this party and its ideals I would like to pay tribute today.
The presence in the multi-party talks of parties from all across the political spectrum is something that we as a party have worked towards for many years. But of course it is not an end in itself: in many ways our most difficult work began once we reached that table. But I would like to take issue with those who have doubted that it has any real significance at all, and who refuse to believe that a negotiated solution is possible.
That is a negative and pessimistic view which I completely reject. The history of Europe since the second World War, and of the world in the last decade, has shown that even disputes far more bitter and violent than ours can be settled and laid to rest. This does not happen overnight, and it always begins with the opposing parties sitting down to talk to one another. Any dispute can be settled if the parties genuinely wish to do so, and if the conditions outside allow them the time and the patience to overcome the differences between them. I firmly believe that, thanks to the work of many, including the SDLP, we have those circumstances now in Ireland.
But the opportunity must be grasped, and grasped firmly, if we are to succeed. Too much political capital has been invested in this process to believe it could be easily restarted if we do not succeed on this occasion. There are small but ruthless groups outside the parties engaged in the talks - and regrettably even some democratic parties - who actively want them to fail and are seeking to bring this about. There are others, within the parties at the talks, who may be tempted to cut and run for the easy solution of retreating to the safe and unchallenging mutual hostility from which we are trying to escape.
The first phase of the multi-party talks has now been completed, in which all parties looked at the whole spectrum of issues facing them, and set out their positions. In some cases, of course, the parties were doing so for the first time in a negotiating process. The SDLP approached these negotiations from the outset in a spirit of complete engagement and willingness to search for an agreement and we have endeavoured to set out our views clearly.
Now we are moving into the second phase, when negotiations will be less formal and structured but more intense. Real points of difference and agreement will have to be identified and focused on, and compromises worked out. The essential factors here - within which anything is possible - are a genuine engagement and commitment to finding an agreement, and the courage to take the risks. We are all moving on to new ground here. The supporters of our party and the other parties and the whole community are willing us to succeed. It is critically important that those of us who are tightly focused on the talks continue to listen to their voices.
No one who has been engaged in Northern Ireland politics for as long as many of us here have been will underestimate the challenge that lies ahead, or the potential for the unexpected to derail us. Perhaps the most difficult challenge is that of overcoming the legacy of intense suspicion, distrust and bitterness which has been the only lasting achievement of over 25 years of violence.
This legacy of mistrust, and readiness to believe the worst of the other side, will have to be overcome throughout the community in the period after an agreement is reached, when we try to make it a reality in daily life here. It is for this reason that we in the SDLP have always seen the solution in terms of people rather than territory, and in terms of the web of relationships between peoples and societies which need to be repaired and nurtured.
The ideas we have put forward, involving political structures in Northern Ireland which allow both communities to have a real share in shaping their future as well as North-South bodies which will allow us to work together in many areas with the wider Irish people and diaspora, are a dynamic response to the problem of establishing trust. It is in the day-today working out of practical problems that the suspicions which are bred by lack of familiarity and understanding will be overcome.
It is the task of politicians and political parties to seek to improve the lives and conditions of those we represent. I can think of no higher goal or greater responsibility than securing for all our people a normal life, in which political discussion can centre on the everyday matters which for so long have been neglected. That will be the real test of the arrangements we are now negotiating. It is through working together on the everyday issues of common concern that the new, agreed Ireland to which we are all committed, will emerge.
As we have made clear, the SDLP is in the talks in order to find a way forward not just on the political and constitutional issues which can divide us but on the economic and social issues which can unite us. We have a vision of the Ireland we want as a result; an open, outward-looking, tolerant island economy with carefully constructed linkages into Europe and the US, a society with high levels of education, employment and social solidarity.
In Ireland people tend to get hung-up on the vision at the expense of reality; we need a method to bring our everyday life closer to reality. In the SDLP we have a method; it is non-violent, it is democratic, it is open, it is non-partisan, it seeks partnership within the North, within the island and throughout the world, it is practical and pragmatic. It is inspired by the founding fathers of Europe. Not only did they say: "Never again shall we go to war against each other", they also foresaw the huge changes that the world would undergo and the need for their peoples situated in a small corner of a vast continent to combine their wills and strengths. They saw that the world, because of the technological and telecommunications revolution, would become a much smaller place and interdependence was essential in that new world. That vision is even more relevant and more urgent on this tiny island as we leave the decades of conflict behind us.
Europe is changing and our place in Europe is changing. The European Commission has tabled "Agenda 2000", a document which will determine our future in Europe in the years ahead. There are many issues up for negotiation. Can Northern Ireland retain the benefit of Objective No 1 status for European structural funds? Is the continuation of the MacSharry reforms the right way for farming? And, if so, how will compensation for price cuts be treated?
It is vitally important that as a community, unionist and nationalist, loyalist and republican, we examine these issues and give a united and informed response to them to both governments in Dublin and London who are participating in the Agenda 2000 negotiations and directly to the Commission in Brussels.
I do so with some confidence, on the basis of our successful partnership with the Ulster Unionist and Democratic Unionist representatives in the European Parliament in the delivery of the peace and reconciliation programme. Last month a plenary session of the European Parliament unanimously endorsed the continued funding of the package in 1998 and 1999. We are deeply grateful for this support. I do so with confidence because of the great success our local councillors have had with all the other political parties in carrying out the partnership programmes.
Our view is that the North's economy must develop and achieve its full potential if a political and constitutional agreement is to be properly underpinned. We must be given the opportunity to grow, to develop the education policies, the industrial incentive policies and the social partnership policies which we need. On all of these we have fallen far behind the South, because the South has had the freedom, and the freedom of mind, to develop the policies which suited best its needs. The North has suffered from the straitjacket of direct rule, and has slipped, year by year, into greater and greater economic and psychological dependency. The continued refusal by London to accept the economic reality of the need for the single currency will serve only to increase the North's relative isolation from the vanguard of Europe and from the trading and low interest benefits of the euro which the South will enjoy.
By the way, does anyone believe that our interests in Europe would be better protected by London than by Dublin? Does the concern and the competency rest with Dublin or with London? Could anyone imagine Dublin failing so spectacularly and for so long on a priority matter like BSE? Indeed, BSE has been an enormous economic crisis for Northern Ireland, but British governments don't even seem to be aware of it.
The outcome of the talks must give us the means to find a new way forward, combining our own efforts in the talks with structures of support from London, Brussels and Washington. As a party we will continue to play our role in making friends in Europe and the US, in government and in corporate business, for the benefit of all the people. The SDLP has built powerful links over the years with the US and Europe, links which have been of enormous economic benefit to all our people. We will continue to build them.
A key part of the way forward (although not the only one) is to build on North-South co-operation towards a fully-functioning all-island economy. Europe through the Single Market has created an economic space where we can grow together instead of dwindling apart. In almost every sector - farming, business, tourism, energy - the main groupings and interests on both sides of the Border are calling for a more integrating, harmonised and united approach to marketing, to planning, to taxation, to regulation. This is not some meaningless and trivial sop to the nationalist identity as some unionist leaders seem to understand it. No, it is the minimum which is necessary to enable us, unionist and nationalist alike, to compete and to survive in the modern interdependent world of real lives and real jobs.
It is time that government and government departments matched the work and energy of the business sector (where over 2,000 firms now have North-South linkages), the commitment of the voluntary groups to the process or reconciliation and social inclusion, and the innovative work of local councils and boards on both sides of the Border to promote co-operation despite the mismatch of their powers and functions.
The SDLP kept faith with, and stood firm within, the talks process when others dismissed it as a sham or a trap. Equally, we kept faith with and stood firm for the peace process when others again attacked it as a sham or a trap. We have used our singular position of involvement in both processes to bring their paths together to find a new agreed way forward.
When other parties and commentators told us to give up on the peace process, our own judgment told us that we had to protect the potential for achieving a cessation of violence. Difficulties, frustrations and suspicions were no excuse for giving up on the chance to bring about the prime conditions for real negotiations, a peaceful atmosphere.
Had we given up on either or both fronts, would we have witnessed the significant events of the past six months or so? All those "historic days" as the talks process and peace process were brought alongside each other would not have happened had we followed the advice or adopted the tactics of our opponents and critics.
This party has played a unique role in both striving to bring about a restoration of the IRA ceasefire and working to develop an inclusive negotiating process. We have been patient and persistent in the face of very difficult odds, and very odd difficulties. We have always taken risks for peace, we have never, and we will never, take risks with peace. Given the sort of pressures and frustrations we have faced, it would have been easy to lose patience and perspective. The fact that we lost neither is a mark of the quality of our analysis and the strength of our strategy.
We need those qualities and strengths for the task ahead - negotiating and agreeing a new political dispensation. We also need other parties to work with us and talk with us, reflecting the strengths and qualities of their own approach. Important as our role is, we know that we cannot conjure up an agreement ourselves, just as we know that an agreement cannot be achieved without our committed involvement. The same applies to other parties. We can each use that reality negatively, blaming others and exercising rival vetoes, or we can recognise the importance of others, and take some confidence for ourselves in real negotiations.
I - and others - have said before that there can be no agreed solution without the unionists. Let me add that there can be no agreed solution against the unionists. We want an agreement with unionists. We need a solution that will have their allegiance as well as ours. It would be nice to hear unionist leaders sincerely say the same thing about the rest of us.
The SDLP has identified equality of allegiance as a key requirement for any new agreed political arrangements. We all know only too well the instability and compound divisiveness that comes with inequality of allegiance. Having arrangements that have their own allegiance, but not the allegiance of the rest of us, has not actually provided unionists with any real assurance or stability. If we can instead agree new arrangements that can equally enjoy the allegiance of nationalists as well as unionists, would that not allow unionists a greater sense of confidence in the stability and viability of those arrangements? As social democrats have to argue so often, enlightened self-interest, if nothing else, should encourage those who fear loss to embrace equality.
Equality of allegiance would change the nature of the political relationship between traditions and parties. By providing essential political equality it would provide a basis for real and developing partnership. None of this would threaten or diminish the validity of the unionist tradition, the integrity of their ethos or the strength of their identity. It would actually offer unionists more positive reflection of their legitimate interests and more meaningful assurance than could any Westminster laws or British government declarations which they do not fully trust and nationalists do not subscribe to.
Victories are not solutions. Domination is not accommodation. Unionists and nationalists alike need to appreciate that a political order founded only on their own will, or formed only in their own ethos or identity, will not fulfil their real needs or truly vindicate their rights. We must all recognise in our divided society that there is no requirement arising from our own sense of allegiance and identity that must not equally be accommodated in respect of others. Let us in these talks reach an agreement that will end our quarrel forever and begin the real healing process. Let us in 1998 give a real celebration to the anniversary of 1798 by bringing together Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter in real agreement and with real respect for one another. Let us enter the next century together, hand in hand: we shall overcome.