ABSTRACT
Our fundamental concerns are peace and democracy…The need to decommission derives from the democratic principle…There is no place for guns at the table of democracy…Consent simply means that it is for the people of Northern Ireland as a whole, and for them alone, to determine their constitutional destiny…it is for the people of Northern Ireland to determine to which state they belong. Some say this reflects an old-fashioned view of sovereignty and that the issue of which state you belong to can be blurred or fudged. That is wrong. Sovereignty today is essential to protect the democratic principle. The question is, to whom do you pay your taxes? Who takes decisions concerning your rights and your future? Are those persons elected by you? Do they account to you and can you turn them out if they make the wrong decisions? These are the most fundamental questions that can be asked about the political arrangements of any society. These questions can be answered in a United Kingdom context or a Republic of Ireland context: but they cannot be answered democratically in a condominium or any form of joint British/Irish constitutional fudge (David Trimble MP, 23 March 1996).
