Sometimes seminal changes in Irish society can be synopsised in a snapshot. At the beginning of 1995, it is possible to drive all the way from Dublin to Belfast, and back, and not encounter any explicit evidence of a British Army presence. Likewise, one can walk into Belfast’s Europa Hotel, order Bewley’s tea, scones plus clotted cream and, for a moment at least, forget that for every year of the past 25 years, trays containing afternoon tea have been blasted out through windows as the hotel suffered yet another bomb attack.

Nevertheless, on entering the newly-renovated bar of the Europa, Progressive Unionist party leader David Ervine immediately insists that he will not sit near a window nor sit with his back to the crowd, explaining: “I need to see what’s going on in the room.”

It’s a sharp reminder of the tentative nature of the current Peace Process, particularly as it relates to the psyche of a man who describes himself as an “ex-terrorist.” But then, perhaps, Ervine has every reason for being tentative. Although now widely-touted as the legitimate voice of modern unionism he is probably best remembered as the former member of the UVF who, in 1975, was arrested for allegedly attempting to transport a bomb and then forced, at gunpoint to defuse that bomb himself.

Ervine was interrogated at Castlereagh and served his sentence in Long Kesh, where he met “Gusty” Spence, the founder of the modern UVF and the man who confounded sceptics last September when he publicly announced the Loyalist Paramilitary ceasefire – flanked by Ervine, among others. That single event, in itself, was crucial to the profound changes in Ireland’s political landscape last year. But the ceasefire has a long way to go before it proves permanent – and Ervine has no problem addressing the question of why he is noticeably nervous as we begin this interview in the Europa Hotel.

Joe Jackson: Is it instinctual to you now, that you automatically decide not to sit by a window and so on?

DAVID ERVINE: Yeah. Probably because I have been doing it for so long. I’m also very conscious of what happened to the Archduke Ferdinand!

Do such gestures also reflect the tentative nature of the peace process right now?

I have no doubt, from the loyalist side, of the determination to embrace peace. I, similarly, have no doubt that the vast majority of those in Sinn Fein and in the IRA leadership are keen to embrace peace. But one must be aware that perhaps my death could herald something terrible and it would be foolish of me to make it easy for anyone. I’m also fearful of talk of rumps in the IRA. They may be political machinations but they also could be real.

What about these rumps you talk about, as in paramilitaries on both sides who want nothing to do with a peace process and might be simply waiting for a crack to appear so they can resume killing?

They would be viewed with absolute disgust, and distaste around the world, if they were to take such action. And as they’ve always been mindful of how they are perceived around the world I don’t think they are going to lose that in 1995. Likewise they would be viewed with total disgust in Belfast, which is the area I represent. The atmosphere here is superb at the moment and that is the statement of ordinary people saying: ‘I won’t countenance a return to the past’. Indeed, ordinary people would be quite brutal with those who would attempt to take from them that which they haven’t had in my lifetime – control of their own destiny. That control isn’t there yet but people are seeing their society being handed back to them and they will be merciless with anyone who tries to take that away from them again.

Some would suggest that the most potent force in the peace process, North and South, has come from the peoples’ desire for change, to leave behind the cycles of violence.

There are many factors but one of the major reasons is the wind of change that exists in the Irish republic, and the realisation that there is a difference between a Northern nationalist and a Southern nationalist. Particularly in terms of the desires and interests of ordinary people in the Republic, as opposed to the perception a unionist may have of them. The more I travel in the Republic the more I realise there is a warmth, a sense of caring, and of goodwill- that more than anything else.

You have claimed that people, North and South, have been led astray for too long by stereotypical images of what nationalists and unionists are. As in the view that all nationalists in the Republic are under the feet of the Catholic Church and all Protestants as equally influenced by the DUP and its base in Free Presbyterian Church.

Absolutely. But more than that, unionism has also always attacked the closeness of Church and State in the republic. Apart from the totally positive fact that this closeness is being further eroded even as we speak, unionists are hypocritical in this sense because the fact remains that we ourselves created a Protestant parliament for a Protestant people. So the idea of religion and State was just as central here as it was when De Valera created a Catholic parliament for a Catholic people in the Republic. They were mirror images of each other, guaranteed to divide, separate, and keep us in a state of perpetual bitterness and hatred.

And that’s why you have recently called on the DUP to disassociate itself from the Free Presbyterian Church.

And the Orange Order to disassociate itself from the Official Unionist Party. And I hear that the Orange Order and the Official Unionists are discussing a separation.

And what about the DUP? It has been suggested that Peter Robinson will never replace Paisley as leader of that party because the Free Presbyterian powers-that-be think his base is too secular.

Well, it’s good news that he won’t become leader! That’s for sure. Robinson is a capable politician but, unfortunately, he is trapped in that fundamentalist party. He’s not a fundamentalist himself, but it is very difficult to break those shackles. On the other hand, what we in the Progressive Unionist Party see ourselves as doing is basically creating the atmosphere in which people can defuse the stranglehold of fear and siege and step back and redefine what unionism is as the century ends, how we are changing, and must continue to change in this new set of circumstances.

You recently said ‘we must start not in 1690 or 1916 but now’. Couldn’t that be seen as a cop-out in terms of the wrongdoings of the past, which must first be recognised before anyone can fully embrace the future?

It’s not a cop-out. And, yes, we definitely must recognise the ills of the past, because we are a people deeply rooted in the past, on both sides.

That said, common to all interviews I’ve done with unionists from Ken Maginnis through Peter Robinson to Ian Paisley Junior is that they all talk about ‘perceived’ ills of the past, as if nationalists imagined the systematic discrimination in terms of education, housing, employment – all the manifestations of Northern Ireland being what you earlier described as a Protestant state for a Protestant people. How can anyone move forward when they are locked in such a ludicrous state of denial in relation to the past?

You push me to profanity when you tell me something like that. Of course it’s not a case of ‘perceived’ wrongdoing. It is ‘wrongdoings’ full stop. The ills of the past existed. And no one, but no one can legitimately deny that. And that state of denial is a posturing position between two divided traditions within the one people. But I will say to you, as bluntly as I can say it, that the ills of the past in Northern Ireland were carried out by the few in the name of the many. We had a society run on patronage and suppression. The Catholic was punished for his disloyalty and we – the majority of Protestants – were abused for our loyalty. And let’s be under no illusion about this. The ills of the past didn’t just happen to a Catholic community, though they did happen specifically more brutally to Catholics. They happened to a mass of working class people who, through fear and a sense of siege were, again, manipulated and controlled to guarantee the perpetuation of the status quo. For example, is it any accident that the owners of the dark, satanic Mills were all senior members of the unionist party? Is that a reasonable acknowledgement that the ills of the past did take place? Will you accept that I acknowledge that they took place and that I do not live in a state of denial in relation to all this? And although we obviously must never allow the ills of the past to take place again – which is a great fear among Catholics – we also must never allow our society to degenerate again into bloody war.

But do you agree that the process of self-definition for too many unionists is still rooted in, and crippled by, a core denial of systematic discrimination?

If so, I’ll use your phrase: that’s a cop-out on their behalf. But I believe that only when this society acknowledges where it’s been can it ever have a snowball’s chance in hell of finding out where it’s going.

What about your own past? Could you describe the evolution of David Ervine from being a nineteen year old who joined the UVF and later was caught carrying a bomb with the aim of, presumably, killing nationalists to you now being a unionist attempting to accommodate nationalist needs?

One can’t describe my personal evolution in isolation from what my society was like at the time. It started out in circumstances where you had serious communal street violence, sniper wars, people being found up alleyways, tortured, shot and the sense that this was it, the war had begun. Up until nineteen I hadn’t ventured forth. But at that point my wife had given birth to a young son and there was a sense that our society now is in the throes of civil war, which was in 1972. So at that point I joined the paramilitaries. It was what my peers were doing. Then, in 1974, I was arrested in possession of explosives “with intent to endanger life”, a charge that I pleaded not guilty to. But I was found guilty and sentenced to eleven years in prison.

This is central in relation to your past – the well-publicised image of you being sent back around to your car, rope tied to your waist, and made to defuse the bomb by the RUC because you allegedly had a knowledge of explosives.

It was a British Army I.T.O. actually and that did happen. And he held a pistol behind me and told me to go back to the car. But let me answer your original question, which was how did I evolve from that to where I am today. What happened is that you find that the policeman who arrests you is essentially defending the status quo, as is the prison officer who incarcerates you, as is the judge who sentences you. And if that’s not enough to rock the foundation of your justification I’m not sure what is. And I certainly had mixed emotions at the time, ending up saying to myself ‘here’s this society I’m supposed to be defending and it treats me rather brutally’.

Surely that experience led to a of sense of affinity with nationalists, who, as you admitted earlier, have always been treated “rather brutally” in Northern Ireland.

I wouldn’t use the word ‘affinity’.

Did it, then, give you the kind of understanding of the nationalist psyche that might not have otherwise been available to people who didn’t go through the process of being incarcerated in Long Kesh.

I’m not sure I had the understanding at that point but it came in time. And probably began when “Gusty” Spence first asked me ‘who are you and why are you here?’ I said ‘for possession of explosives’ and he said ‘no, why are you here?’ I thought that was an arrogant question but it did, to some degree, unlock the door for me. And I was in a compound with, at one time, a hundred men who had political opinions ranging from those who were to the right of Ghengis Khan to those who were left of Joe Stalin and that whole conglomeration of ideas broadened my mind considerably. And “Gusty” in particular certainly facilitated the thought process that makes you ask yourself: ‘Here is what people in this society are doing to each other and I am part of this. Is there a winner or are we all losers? What is it that is within me that I should even countenance the taking of life? What is in me that makes me think everything Irish is anathema to me and what is it in republicans that makes them see everything British as anathema while here we are, sharing this small sod, breathing the same air, eating the same food and so on?’ In time I began to question everything along those lines.

How did the more rigidly rooted loyalists respond to you daring to redefine unionism in that way?

Condemnation, from many in the community. But then you say ‘well, there’s this parsimonious, fine, upstanding pillar of society who, through his use of language seems to countenance war yet, in reality, simply marches to the top of the hill, applies the brakes and watches as young kids with little sense and little awareness plummet over the edge’. And those things make you finally say ‘what the hell is going on here?’

One assumes you are referring to Ian Paisley Snr. when you speak of a parsimonious pillar of society leading kids to the top of the hill . . .

Certainly not only Ian Paisley. Bill Craig was doing the same thing at the time too, with all that ‘Ulster is Right, Ulster Will Fight’ talk, which young men of 19 will take quite literally. But I don’t mean all this to be an abnegation of my responsibility. I just want to give you a sense of the atmosphere in our society at the time. And the real point, as far as I’m concerned, is that I now regard myself as an ex-terrorist. And if I can change, so too can anyone who really wants to, in the name of the peace process.

Did you yourself ever advocate the leading of kids to the edge of the hill? It has been suggested that you were in the Army Brigade of the UVF.

Nonsense. Sheer, utter nonsense. And I know that has been suggested, by a Dublin newspaper, The Sunday Tribune. But no matter how often I claim that is not the case, will people believe me? Yet the accusation has got to have come from spurious journalism because it is totally untrue.

Yet wouldn’t you be bound to say that anyway because, having once been a member of the UVF, you are sworn to their strict code of secrecy on such matters?

I accept that. But I’m telling you it’s totally untrue. Yet it is a no-win question so I’m going to have to live with that public perception of my past.

You’ve indicated that you put your neck on the line by arguing for a loyalist paramilitary ceasefire. In what sense? By opposing a party such as the DUP who, it’s said, were avidly opposed to such a development?

I don’t think I’m putting my neck on the line within unionism, as such. It would be more nationalists who would want me out of the way, as I said earlier.

But unionism isn’t a homogenous group so, in certain sectors, would you not have been seen as ‘betraying the cause’?

Maybe among a group of people who would be sabre-rattlers without sabres.

As in the DUP?

There certainly would be DUP elements involved in that, yes. But I’m not particularly frightened by anything in unionism. I certainly don’t feel I’m under threat from unionists. And as for the suggestion that the DUP didn’t want the ceasefire, I’m not sure that is true. But I do know that a party like Sinn Fein certainly didn’t anticipate seeing “Gusty” Spence and myself standing there reading out the loyalist paramilitary ceasefire declaration. They would have loved nothing better than to say ‘we are the peacemakers, but look at these Neanderthal, intransigent loyalists who are destroying the chances of peace’. Indeed, I believe that the intent of the IRA was to ensure that the loyalists continued. But I would remind you the Progressive Unionist Party and the Ulster Democratic Party have brokered not one but two ceasefires. In 1981 we brokered the ceasefire in conjunction with the Brooke Talks and the statement said at that time ‘to facilitate dialogue and agreement’. And the politicians balls’d it up at that point. Hence the appearance of people like me who are not going to allow them to balls it up in future.

You talk of the DUP being “sabre rattlers without sabres”. By extension does this mean that the PUP have the “sabres” in that it’s been suggested you have the backing of people like Captain Black and broader paramilitary forces at a street level?

No. My essential argument is that those who have emanated from the nether-world of paramilitarism are talking accommodative, non-absolutist language, and are looking for a way forward; and realise that here is an opportunity that neither they, nor I, have seen in my lifetime. The politics of division have not worked, so it’s time to try something different.

Do you think the IRA should have to hand over its arms before they can be involved in peace talks?

All things being equal, yes. But I don’t think it’s simply a matter of Sinn Fein talking to the British, or me talking to my government and coming to some agreement on arms. Because the difficulty is that it is nationalists and unionists who will be looking at each other with distrust. They’ll be saying ‘did anybody take an inventory here? Is anybody sure we got them all?’ So what we must do first is build trust into this process and further down the line the protagonists themselves will have to sort out the issue of weapons. But, to begin with, we must make certain that those guns are not used, then deal with the issue later. Because if we make this whole question a barrier we may end up destroying the peace process.

It’s claimed that one of the barriers standing in the way of loyalist paramilitaries handing over their weapons is the fact that the INLA have not signed themselves over to the peace process.

That would be a big problem for unionists, definitely. And intelligence reports in Belfast suggest that there is still targeting going on. Dry-run targeting, where people are being followed and addresses being checked, waiting for things to resume. And one must ask why haven’t the INLA moved to ceasefire? Maybe they can’t countenance the notion of a ceasefire, maybe they’re not prepared, maybe they’re looking to recruit disaffected IRA men at some point. It’s hard to say. But there’s no doubt that their continuing presence is a huge problem for loyalists.

Couldn’t one suggest that the Progressive Unionist Party is stigmatised as a result of its links with the UVF?

It would be a little like we’ve got a good message but we may well be the wrong messengers. But we, the Progressive Unionists, can probably achieve more than some others could have achieved in attempting to break the mould. And the difference between the DUP for example, and I, is that for me it’s country before party. I’m not about electoral mandates and all that. I’m more committed to the fragile peace which must be nurtured and built upon. That process might even suffer at the thought of an election. So the notion that I would dive towards an election just to get the mandate is nonsense – though that is being said of me.

It’s also been said that you are the “most reasonable” voice of unionism, the leadership figure for the future. Is support for the PUP, and for you personally growing?

Yes. On the day of the IRA ceasefire,when the IRA were saying ‘we are no longer going to kill you’, the people of the Shankill Road, and East Belfast, Portadown and so on felt not elated but dejected. They were dejected because of the notion of betrayal and that some price had been exacted by the IRA in relation to our nationality. And they were fearful of a future that was a black hole. That was a dangerous set of circumstances, particularly in a divided society backed by guns. The notion that ‘violence pays’ – as some were saying it obviously had for the IRA – was a lethal notion. So we felt we’d have to step forward and – provided we were correct in believing that no surreptitious deals were done behind our backs – calm the people down and build confidence among unionists to allow the process to take place on a level playing surface. And that’s what we’ve tried to do and it definitely has met with an overwhelmingly positive response overall.

How did you convince the people, and paramilitaries, that no deal had been done, especially when Paisley was screaming out from the rooftops, that unionists had been ‘betrayed’.

For a start unionists had felt excluded since the Anglo-Irish Agreement, which was all done above our heads. With the ceasefire that sense of fear arose again so we embarked upon a period of serious consultation with everybody we could talk to, to assuage the fears of unionism – including the British Labour Party, because it obviously isn’t certain that a Conservative Government will be in control in the future. So, finally, we were convinced that there was no deal done with the IRA and the peoples’ belief in us then created the loyalist ceasefire. And one of the planks of our argument was, and always will be, that if there are people genuinely attempting to solve the problem of Northern Ireland then to elevate one section of the community above the other, in that process, will never work. It would have been totally counter-productive for anyone to believe that the nationalists alone were setting the agenda for peace.

That must also have meant convincing loyalist paramilitaries that their fear of the so-called ‘pan-nationalist front’ which included the London Government, Dublin, Sinn Fein and the SDLP, were unfounded.

That concept definitely had to be dislodged and I think we’re winning that argument. And not only are we winning it. I think many elements within that perceived notion of pan-nationalism are showing quite clearly that they have no specific desire to stuff down the throats of the people of Northern Ireland that which they cannot countenance.

Which also means that unionists ought not to be wary of John Hume and the SDLP, surely?

The danger in that is that whenever people say the unionists have a veto, one should remember that the SDLP are actually the ones who have wielded a veto with some masterful manoeuvres over the past 20 years. So, it all comes down to a question of trust, building up the kind of genuine appreciation of consent and self-determination that will break down even barriers between opponents on the unionist side.

And what about the question of trust in relation to Sinn Fein and the IRA. Can you, and the people you represent, trust the likes of Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams?

It’s a bit early to say. We’ll see.

What would you like to see happen that would help build up that trust?

I’d like to see a movement away from the rhetoric. We have been, without contradiction, extremely accommodative in our language and have moved away from the absolutist language that has been more the norm in traditional unionism. Yet we have achieved no reciprocation. That would help greatly.

What form of rhetorical language, from Sinn Fein and the IRA, has been damaging, specifically?

Things like saying that the Northern Ireland State has gone too far and has to be destroyed rather than repaired. And the total abolition of the RUC. Things like that, rather than saying ‘we’ll step forward and come together and as a people create the kind of society we want’. It’s already been said that talks in the future will be exclusive to no position. In other words, that everything and anything is open for discussion. And that’s how things should be.

Do you doubt then that Sinn Fein and the IRA could ever be fully committed to such talks when their objective still is the attainment of a United Ireland?

A united Ireland is a wholly legitimate aspiration but not when it is argued for through violence or through the threat of violence. They will have to accept that. But what do you do with an aspiration anyway? How the hell can you tell someone ‘don’t you dare have such an aspiration’? Unionists are not saying that. And what we could be doing, on both sides, is making the opposite side more comfortable with our individual aspirations.

So what is the way forward, from the Progressive Unionists’ perspective?

What we’re saying is let’s have an assembly created by proportional representation, with positions in government as a right. Now, you will acknowledge that that is a sense of institutionalised sectarianism. But I am prepared to stand democracy on its head. I’m prepared to say also that we should not deal in this society on civil majorities, we should deal on super majorities, much like the Senate in America, where 60% is required to enact legislation. We need a Bill of Rights. We need a written constitution to protect absolutely the citizenry, the groupings and associations within our society. We need a special relationship with the government of the Irish republic – or rather, a special relationship with the people of the Irish republic, through the Government of the Irish republic; these, and many other things we, as a people, can do together, that are hurtful to no one yet beneficial to all.

And that, in your view is the only way forward.

Yes. I define unionism as the expression that I am British. But, having said that, I am peculiarly Irish as well, which makes a nonsense of De Valera, in 1937, trying to create an almost Hitlerian Ireland, in terms of its purity. You’re peculiarly British and I’m peculiarly Irish and that’s a reality. It’s not something to be denied. Perhaps it’s something to be celebrated, if the atmosphere is right.

But how can you maintain that right to describe yourself as British, and, indeed, remain British if nationalists achieve their aspiration towards a united Ireland. Isn’t this the crux of the matter?

There won’t be a united Ireland.

So what are you saying to nationalists, ‘you can have the aspiration but nothing more?’

It won’t happen either way! But then nor will it happen that my ideal position of full and integrated union within the United Kingdom will come true. As such what I’m doing is facing reality here. I’m faced with saying ‘there is no winner to this war, it is a futile war, therefore why do it?’ So the arguments have got to be political arguments and, essentially, they are. That’s the way forward. Then, if we create the circumstances where my children, or my childrens’ children, make the conscious decision to go for a united Ireland, that will be their choice. But that is the choice of democracy, consent and self-determination. However, I say to republicans who talk a lot about the demographic changes in Northern Ireland and how that will change the landscape in future: ‘if you want people to acknowledge and respect your democracy, then isn’t a reasonable first step to recognise their democracy now?’

Some people do still talk in terms of ‘Brits Out’, then all else will follow’?

I’m a ‘Brit’. And what I would say to them is: when the hell do I cease to be a planter? My family have been here for four hundred years. And though I don’t know who was here first, we could go into things like the Iberian Peninsula and the awful, heinous things that have happened to us all. In fact we could go on and on and on ad infinitum. But what we’ve got to do now is draw the shutter down on all this and just say ‘there’s got to be a better way’. Those who would describe me as socialist, unionist, British, Irish should think again. Gerry Adams describes me as his ‘Protestant brother’ though he can’t quite countenance calling me his ‘British brother’. In other words he has a problem with my nationality, not I with his. So I say to those who would label me, realise that, in essence, my dogma stretches to one line and I’ll say it to you again because it bears repeating: ‘there has got to be a better way’. And, just as Gerry Adams once said he hoped to see republicans taking their place in Leinster House so too, hopefully, in the future, we’ll see republicans taking their place in Westminster to argue their case for what I consider to be a wholly legitimate aspiration.

Towards what you call a better way?

Whatever. Towards a united Ireland if they so wish. But of one thing I am sure, the only way forward is through the political process, not through violence. And I’ll say that again too. That’s the one lesson we learned in 1994, and one which I hope we carry through into the future.

Do you think the peace process will be helped, or hindered by the fact that the new Taoiseach is seen by some as sympathetic to unionists. Indeed, Albert Reynolds once called John Bruton ‘John Unionist’.

I would be inclined not to worry who the Taoiseach is. I think, essentially, that whoever is in power will have to be mindful that the elevation of any one section of the community in Northern Ireland over another will not work. So John Bruton will have to be sensitive to the constituencies that must be kept on board, on both sides. But what’s really important is that baby steps be taken towards the future. Yet I think Bruton will have ample political capacity and will use, I’m sure, as his guideline, the Downing Street Declaration. Therefore I’m sure he’ll have a fairly reasonable relationship with Sinn Fein, as well as unionists. In that sense, in the interests of all our people, it doesn’t matter who is Taoiseach as long as they look at what is achievable and work, realistically, towards that goal. That’s as much as any of us can do at this point in time.

Indeed, the onus is on all of us to do that. Politicians and non-politicians alike. History will never forgive us if we don’t. Our children will never forgive us if we don’t.