This is coercion, not consent

Unionists are not, and never have been, opposed to genuine co-operation with their neighbour to the south. As long ago as 1985, Jim Molyneaux and Ian Paisley, in a joint letter to Margaret Thatcher, indicated their willingness, "provided United Kingdom sovereignty remains undiminished, and the Republic's territorial claim is withdrawn ... to contribute to British/Irish co-operation as members of a newly formed government of Northern Ireland meeting with opposite numbers in the Irish Republic to consider matters of mutual interest and concern." Indeed, in 1925 there had been an agreement for joint meetings of the Belfast and Dublin cabinets - abrogated by the Irish government after only two meetings and rendered impossible after the adoption of De Valera's constitution with its offensive territorial claim.

None the less, practical co-operation proceeded. An oft-quoted example is the Foyle Fisheries Commission, a Unionist initiative. The commission was created by legislation in the Northern Ireland parliament and today the commissioners are responsible to the administration in Belfast, which could itself decide to wind up the body if it was not doing a good job.

The proposals which we believe are in the framework document do not follow the good precedent established by that commission. We believe the Irish government is pressing for the new all-Ireland body to draw its authority from legislation at Westminster. That way any new assembly in Belfast would be unable to diminish its scope. We are told that Belfast would have to approve any increase in its powers; but this is small comfort if we dislike the powers that will be transferred outside the United Kingdom.We are told that the decisions of the all-Ireland body will have to be processed through the assembly; but this is small comfort when there is a default mechanism to enable Dublin to take action if it considers that Belfast is not co-operating to its liking. And there is, as Michael Howard pointed out in the context of the Prison Service, a distinction between accountability and responsibility.

These elements of the proposals are coercive. They suggest a clear desire to gain power over people in Northern Ireland, to compel them to act within an all-Ireland political context when their clear desire is to continue simply as citizens of the UnitedKingdom on the same basis as all their fellow citizens.

The proposals, moreover, will create a form of joint authority. Sir Patrick Mayhew's attempt to argue the contrary in the Commons yesterday involved a play on words of the same order as his famous distinction between talks with terrorists and "contacts".

It is not good enough for the Government to say that these proposals are merely consultative. The room for manoeuvre will be extremely limited. Dick Spring, the Irish Foreign Minister, was much more honest when he said last week that there was no question of the common understanding of the two governments being treated by the parties in Northern Ireland as an a la carte menu. If the Government adopts policies which we believe are damaging to continued union between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom, proposals which we have repeatedly warned them are completely unacceptable to us, how can we regard that as anything other than a direct attack upon the Ulster Unionist party? In that case how can we do anything other than oppose the government which has attacked us?

The Prime Minister says there is a "triple lock" on these proposals. We have turned the first lock. If it is disregarded, it would be better for us to get the verdict of the Ulster electorate on the matter now, so that any future government would be in no doubt as to how the people would exercise their consent. If that principle is truly the basis of the approach of both governments and all parties in the Commons, that should be the end of these unacceptable proposals.

The writer is Ulster Unionist MP for Upper Bann.