DUP MP once vowed to take up arms against the IRA
A SENIOR Democratic Unionist Party MP once vowed to take up arms if the British Army withdrew from Northern Ireland, warning that past violence would “be a picnic” in comparison to what would follow.
Gregory Campbell, a former Stormont minister, said he would be among a “substantial number of Protestants” who would see “no way forward other than taking up the gun” if the UK Government allowed a united Ireland.
Mr Campbell, already a prominent DUP figure when aged 32, said he wanted to see IRA members killed, which was the only way to “finish the trouble once and for all”. He was speaking in a 1985 BBC documentary, At the Edge of the Union, which focused on him and Martin Mcguinness.
Mr Campbell, who survived an assassination attempt months earlier, was pictured loading a legally held pistol he used for protection.
“I have no doubt that in that type of a situation I would be out on the streets with the people … Yes, with arms,” he said.
In 2007, Mr Campbell said he had been “emphatic and direct” in the documentary to “rebut and rebuke all that [Mcguinness] stood for”. There would have been no need for such language “if his organisation wasn’t killing people”, he said. The disclosure of the comments comes as the DUP continues talks with the Conservatives over a deal to support a minority government.
Theresa May has faced claims that the alliance could undermine the Government’s position as a neutral arbiter in the Northern Ireland peace process.