Blair promises to crack down on dissident groups

The British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, has said he will come down hard on republican and loyalist paramilitary dissidents who continue their campaigns of violence. Mr Blair who is due to return to Northern Ireland later this week to campaign for a Yes vote in the referendum, said the British government would "clean up" any dissident groups who tried to wreck the Belfast Agreement through violence. He said that if the agreement was carried, the British government would have a mandate to bring it into effect. "Once that happens, there is no case for anybody in any shape or form to do anything other than pursue their particular goals through exclusively democratic means," he said on Downtown Radio.

"People need to know that if they carry on with violence, there will be an absolute and determined will on behalf of the government to clean up whatever dissident or disparate splinter elements there may be of these paramilitary organisations." He was speaking yesterday on a live phone-in programme from 10 Downing Street hosted by journalist Eamon Mallie for Downtown Radio, an independent station based in Newtownards, Co Down.

Mr Blair said there must be IRA decommissioning within the two-year timeframe as laid down by the Belfast Agreement. Without decommissioning Sinn Fein politicians could not serve in an Assembly executive or cabinet. "We have made it clear that unless they give up violence for good, and decommissioning is a part of it, then the provisions are there in the agreement that ensure they are excluded or removed from office.

"We can't have a situation where people who have not given up the path of violence are taking office in the Northern Ireland government. "If there is not a clear giving-up of violence for good, and decommissioning is one of the elements of that, then a whole series of other provisions apply."

Many of the callers to the programme were concerned about prisoner releases and RUC reform. The wife of a police officer indicated she would vote Yes for the sake of the safety of her husband, and for the future of her children. But she said she wanted assurances on the future of the RUC. "There is no question of disbanding the RUC," he told her. "All these stories about former paramilitaries ending up as local police units, please don't believe any of that nonsense."

He wanted to create a police service that was representative of the two communities. "But that is not the same thing as saying that you want paramilitaries ending up having the powers of policemen."

Mr Blair said he understood how people might be offended by early prisoner releases, and the IRA prisoners being allowed to address the Sinn Fein Ardfheis. But he assured callers that prisoners would be released from jails, on licence, only if both the individuals and their organisations had given up violence.

He was aware that some unionists might try to wreck the operations of the assembly. "In the end it's got to be for the people of Northern Ireland to make this work properly . . . I hope very much that the people of Northern Ireland will be wanting to put forward people that are going to make this work properly. It would be quite odd if unionists that fought for a long period of time for a Northern Ireland assembly then try to frustrate its working."

There could be no cherry-picking. If the assembly were to work then the North-South dimension must also work. "This is mutually assured success or mutually assured disruption. If one part of this does not work then the rest of it does not work."

If there were a No response in the referendum the British government would try to pick up the pieces. But the situation would be "bleak" if the agreement were rejected. He could not think of any alternative to the agreement.