John Reid: A message for the men of violence

Taken from a speech by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland at the Labour Party conference

The Good Friday Agreement remains the best hope for future generations in Northern Ireland. It has already delivered so much that's taken for granted: rising living standards; the fastest economic growth rates in the UK; a record fall in unemployment, record inward investment; a society making strides towards normality with its lowest troop levels for 30 years; and a fall in the tragic death toll, from almost 500 a year at the height of the Troubles to 19 last year and seven so far this year.

To those who oppose the Agreement, I have a simple message. Where is your alternative? You know that Northern Ireland has changed beyond recognition from the haunted battlezone of the Troubles. You know that the most serious violence today comes from those who are terrified that the Agreement will succeed. There will be no going back on equality, no going back on human rights, no going back on the reform of criminal justice, no going back on the creation of a representative community police service – the greatest transformation undergone by any policing service anywhere in the world. Those are the rights of every member of this United Kingdom.

And to those on the violent extremes of republicanism and loyalism who want to use violence to drag us back to the past, I have a blunt message: if you think you can bomb people into changing their cultural identity, you have learnt nothing from the past 30 years. I know that I speak not only for this party, but for this country when I say that we want nothing to do with you or your murderous ways.