Mr. Edgar Graham (Hansard, 7 December 1983)

Viscount Long
My Lords, with the leave of the House, I should like to repeat a Statement that is being made in another place by my honourable friend the Minister of State for Northern Ireland. The Statement is as follows:
"Mr. Edgar Graham, a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly, was murdered at ten-to-eleven this morning outside Queen's University, Belfast, where he lectured. He was approached whilst talking to a colleague on the pavement by two youths on foot who fired a number of shots and then fled. The Provisional IRA have claimed responsibility for the murder. A full police inquiry was mounted immediately.
"I know that the whole House will join me in extending sympathy to Mr. Graham's family, as also to those right honorable and honourable Members who were his colleagues. It will also join me in expressing total condemnation of this outrage.
"Edgar Graham was the kind of young man who is needed in Northern Ireland politics. His intellectual gifts would have enabled him to make a good career in any number of fields; he chose to devote them to the process of democracy. At 28 he was already a senior figure in his party, including being Secretary of the Ulster Unionist Council.
"I can speak with personal knowledge of his political skills and penetrating mind as the Chairman of the Finance and Personnel Committee of the Northern Ireland Assembly. I therefore express my own feelings in addition to those of the Government in lamenting his untimely death".
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.

§ Lord Blease
My Lords, in the troubled history of Ireland, this is another sad day for the people of Ulster. Another young Irishman has been brutally murdered—an Irishman who chose to serve his community, as an elected representative. I am very conscious of the fact that on an occasion such as this, words fail to express our innermost feelings over the loss of yet another young life; tragically, such occurrences are all too frequent in our Province. At the same time, our feelings, our hearts, cry out to place on record our abhorrence, our condemnation and our repugnance over this politically futile and evil deed.
1117 From these Benches—and I wish to associate with my remarks my noble friend Lord Underhill, who until now has had duties outside the House—we join in the Government's expression of sympathy for the family and friends of Edgar Graham. We share their sorrow at this time. We also share the deep-felt concern and growing anxiety of the people of Northern Ireland at this time, and we plead that all acts of revenge, retaliation, and sectarianism should be left aside. We appeal to all that the rule of law and order should be upheld and supported, and that the perpetrators, the evildoers, of this and all such vile acts may soon be brought to justice.

§ Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge
My Lords, the two parties on these Benches associate ourselves fully with everything that has been said, and I shall not say it again. One is really lost for words. Month after month we are getting up from these Benches and responding to Statements about barbarism of this kind, first from one side and then from the other. My old friend Lord Fitt will speak later; he knew the murdered man well, so I shall make no personal comments.
However, I should like to ask a question or two. First, I take it that Mr. Graham had permission to carry a gun, and that he probably carried one. I understand that he had no protection, and I should like to know to what extent Assembly Members get protection. It is worth asking, because protection works. Very few people of this type are murdered when they have armed detectives watching them, because then the man who intends to commit the murder knows that he would himself be shot. That would satisfy everybody, so far as it goes.
I also understand from my old friend Lord Fitt that there was some hint that this particular Assembly Member was in special danger at the time. In circumstances of that kind, would it be possible to afford temporary protection? I ask these questions without expecting an answer now, but perhaps I can have a letter about them later, because they seem to me to be matters of importance.
Anybody can get up and shoot someone else in the street, and run away; it is too easy. No number of Royal Ulster Constabulary officers, or anybody else, can stop it. But if there is a guard, the fact that the man who shoots knows that he will himself be shot has a splendid deterrent effect. I think that I speak for all of us in expressing horror.
I am glad to see that, in a sentence in the statement which was handed round, but which the noble Viscount did not read, the Government say: This cold-blooded assassination reminds us not only of the true nature of those who carry out acts of terrorist violence, but also of all those who advocate or support such violence". I wonder whether we have reached the stage where it is an insult to Great Britain to allow people to vote for candidates who openly support the IRA and their murderous activities. I do not expect an answer to that point today, nor have we time to discuss it, but I think that we all ought to think about it very carefully.

§ Lord Fitt
My Lords,—

Viscount Long
My Lords, I am so sorry, but I must answer the two noble Lords who spoke from the Front 1118 Benches. I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Blease, for his kind words on this tragic incident which happened this morning. Of course, all the security forces will do their utmost to uphold law and order at all times, and they deserve many congratulations on the hard work which they put in round the clock in so doing.
The noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, asked me three or four questions, one of which was about protection for Mr. Graham. Yes, my Lords, he was licensed to be armed, which means that he was also trained for protection. But, of course, protection is extremely difficult when you are shot from behind, or without warning.
The noble Lord also asked about the security of other Members of the Assembly. I can assure him that, though the RUC puts a great deal of effort into advising individuals, it is just not possible to offer round-the-clock protection to everyone who is potentially at risk. Therefore, it is most important that everyone who is at risk should take the advice given to him. Mr. Graham was given some advice in the last three or four days, because there was arumour that he was being watched. At this stage, I cannot answer the noble Lord's last question, but I should very much like to write to him and give him the answer.

§ Lord Fitt
My Lords, does the noble Viscount agree that the sinister motive for this latest dreadful murder has, as was intended, been seen to lie in the fact that young Edgar Graham sought and received a mandate from his community for his political point of view? Therefore, his murder will be seen as a direct attack on the people who voted for him and whom he represented in the Northern Ireland Assembly. Indeed, Mr. Graham was to come to this House tomorrow to put forward his quite legitimately held point of view, as he had been doing since he was elected.
His murder today is yet another indication that the IRA is deliberately trying to push the Catholic community and the Protestant community into conflict. It is trying to bring about a civil war. In this connection, does the Minister accept that, as a Roman Catholic, and an Irishman. I find it particularly obscene to see in the press and on television Roman Catholic priests associating openly with men who wear masks and who brandish guns, as we saw in our newspapers this morning? Will the noble Viscount accept that one of the priests at the graveside oration yesterday for one of the IRA men—I deeply regret the death of anyone in the conflict in Northern Ireland—said that there is surely some law of nature which is violated and offended when Irishmen are struck down in the town land of their brothers, in their own ancestral fields, and among their kith and kin? Will the noble Viscount apply the same standards to young Mr. Graham, who was shot down today in the city in which he was born and bred, and in which his bereaved relatives still live? Will he accept that there can no longer be any acceptance of double standards—that murder is murder, as was said by the Pope when he visited Ireland in 1979? Finally, will the noble Viscount accept from me, as one who has lived with this terrible situation for so many years, my heartfelt sympathy for all the bereaved relatives?

Viscount Long
My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Fitt, for his intervention at this sad moment. He has asked me a number of questions. I shall look at what he has said and write to him. One fact is quite clear our security forces must remain in Northern Ireland at all times to see that murder becomes a thing of the past. Whether it be Protestants or Catholics, the IRA must not be allowed to get away with anything. It is very difficult to keep in being all the time a round-the-clock security system. It is even more tragic that outside that wonderful university—Queen's University, Belfast—such a young man should have lost his life—a man so young that he had the whole world before him. I agree with the noble Lord. It is indeed a very sad afternoon.