Posts Tagged ‘Northern Ireland’

Thatcher’s rotten government was only interested in discord and division

31/12/2015, 10:29:17 AM

by Kevin Meagher

It’s not just the low-fi racism of Oliver Letwin’s 1985 memo to Margaret Thatcher that appalls. His dismissal of the “bad moral attitudes” of young Black men following the Broadwater Farm riots also reflects ministerial contempt towards so many other groups throughout that dismal decade.

Conservative politics in the mid-1980s was about as far from the ‘One Nation’ variant as it was possible to be. This was a government at war with large parts of the country it ran. Truly, an elective dictatorship, openly contemptuous of those that did not yield to its will.

So the “pampered Scots” were to be pitched against the “envious” north of England when it came to funding allocations. Black people were only interested in the “disco and drug trade”. Northern Ireland’s border towns should be bombed to stop republican suspects escaping to Southern Ireland.

As we well know, the miners were regarded as “the enemy within”. The entire city of Liverpool was to be subject to “managed decline” following the Toxteth riots, while the local football club’s fans were smeared in a vile cover-up over the deaths of 96 of their number at Hillsborough.

As the hapless Lewtin, possessor of an eager mind but dull wits, currently resides in political no-man’s land, waiting to see if his perfunctory apology is enough to sate the reaction against his comments, Tory strategists should perhaps ponder what other toxic memo-bombs he penned during his time running Thatcher’s policy unit. After all, this was the mid-80s, when she was at her wildest and the New Right policy wonks that fuelled her insurgency were unencumbered.

But aside from the trickle of released government papers of that time, we now also have Lowell Goddard’s wide-ranging inquiry into historic child abuse allegations. Just what will she unearth in the next few years about what ministers did or did not know in relation to the slew of allegations about that period?

What we do know is that all the invective and moral outrage directed towards Margaret Thatcher and her ministers during the 1980s was not wasted. We thought the Tories were a heartless, sneering bunch at the time.

Yesterday’s revelations now make that an evidence-based assessment.

Kevin Meagher is associate editor of Labour Uncut

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Corbyn and McDonnell are finding out why most politicians are all things to all people

25/09/2015, 04:07:32 PM

by Kevin Meagher

John McDonnell and Jeremy Corbyn are a pair of Philips screwdrivers. That’s not meant as a derogatory analogy (‘a pair of spanners’ etc) but merely to point out that, hitherto, during their long years as Members of Parliament, they have performed a single, unique function.

As “campaigning backbench MPs” of a type that Labour has a long tradition of indulging, they champion causes that are outside ‘safe’ political confines. This is not to everyone’s taste, clearly, and from time to time they will say something, or be photographed or share a platform with someone that gets them into trouble with the political mainstream.

But that’s fine; political parties need to be broad churches under first-past-the-post and reach out to as many people as possible. So, every once in a while, an issue that’s deemed to be beyond the pale today graduates into everyone’s favourite cause tomorrow. In this context, MPs of the kind Corbyn and McDonnell were can have a legitimate and sometimes useful role as a conduit to bring those outside in from the cold. (That said, whether they are visionaries, or merely contrarians, is moot).

I say were because a problem arises when you try to use a Philips screwdriver on the more familiar slot-headed screw. It’s an awkward fit. Actually, it doesn’t fit at all.  Like when you take “campaigning backbench MPs” and put them into the top two positions in the Labour party. All their previous views and associations are pored over and thrown back at them. Such is the price for rebels turned statesmen.

The issue has crystallised around John McDonnell’s explanation about why he spoke to a gathering of Irish republicans back in 2003, making the case that it was the IRA’s “bombs and bullets and sacrifice” that brought the British state to the negotiating table. Speaking on last week’s Question Time, he apologised for any offence caused by his remarks, arguing it was a genuine attempt to engage wary republicans and deter them from drifting away from the peace process at a critical time.

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The shadow of Northern Ireland looms over the last days of the referendum campaign

09/09/2014, 07:55:52 AM

by Kevin Meagher

There’s a fascinating essay in the current Demos Quarterly that looks at the various ethnicities in modern Scotland and how these cultural identities may impact on next Thursday’s vote on independence.

The study, written by Richard Webber from the Department of Geography at Kings College London and former chair of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, Trevor Philips, draws particular attention to the reaction of ethnically Irish Catholics in Scotland.

The authors reveal that it was much to their “surprise” that “the strongest majority support for independence was not among ‘pure’ historic Scots, but among people of Irish Catholic descent”.

Given Irish Catholic-heritage voters support Labour “more consistently than any other group in Scotland” why are many of them ignoring the party’s entreaties that we’re “Better Together” and opting for independence? As the authors point out:

“When one considers that electors from the same cultural heritage form the backbone of the Sinn Fein vote in West Belfast, this rejection of Labour’s position can be interpreted as a visceral opposition to the Union, to the Tory establishment and to Westminster. Thus ‘Yes’ voters among this group are likely to have very different motivations and to be expressing very different identities than the typical voter with an English or Welsh name; in fact they are supporting independence for the same reasons that they support Labour, a historic sense of oppression. What is significant is that the appeal of independence is driven more strongly by cultural and political considerations than socio-economic ones.”

Our middle class Westminster political and media elite, so utterly bewildered at the turn of events in recent days, simply don’t understand the power of identity and historical grievance in driving working class politics north of the border. (This is, of course, why none of them cares much about what goes on in Northern Ireland).

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Northern Ireland can’t afford another week like that

05/05/2014, 02:00:55 PM

by Kevin Meagher

By now, you’ve probably heard of Jean McConville, the Belfast mother of ten who was brutally murdered and “disappeared” by the IRA in 1972. You’ve probably not, however, heard of Joan Connelly.

She was another Belfast woman, a mother of eight, who was also brutally killed back in the early 1970s. She went to aid a young man who had just been shot in the street before the same British soldiers turned their rifles on her, shooting her in the head and body.

Her injuries were so serious that half her face was blown off. Joan’s husband could only identify her, on the third attempt, as he recognised her red hair.

This was in August 1971 during Operation Demetrius when internment without trial was brought in to target “IRA ringleaders”. Weak intelligence and the sectarianism of the Stormont government instead saw hundreds of ordinary Catholics arrested and jailed, (but not a single loyalist).

Northern Ireland erupted and in the ensuing tumult, eleven people were killed by the British army over a two-day period in the Ballymurphy area of Belfast. As well as Connelly, soldiers also shot dead a Catholic priest.

Although the Police Service of Northern Ireland has just spent 96 hours grilling Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams about Jean McConville’s heinous murder, there will be no similar effort expended investigating Joan Connelly’s.

We know this because Northern Ireland Secretary Theresa Villiers last week ruled out setting up an inquiry into the Ballymurphy killings.

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Respect for Tony Benn is right, completely rewriting history is not

10/04/2014, 02:00:16 PM

by Kevin Feeney

When any controversial public figure dies, it is both normal and entirely natural for their followers and those inspired by them to whitewash their image a little in an effort to smooth out their rough edges.

Like most of those within the Labour Party who were rather less enamoured of the legacy of the late Tony Benn than other colleagues, I was entirely prepared to overlook the rather telling gaps in his more sympathetic obituaries. It was fine that they passed over his views on Mao, fine that they ignored his practical impact on Labour’s electability in the 1980s, fine that they left unquestioned his own claims as a tribune of democracy.

These were eulogies in the heat of the moment after a figure who they admired had passed on; the time for full and balanced reflections was later. Equally fine were those seemingly obligatory lists of “Issues where they were right” which we expect with any such figure; Benn certainly many of those, from Mandela to gay rights.

Except after a while, I started noticing something else creeping into that last list in Benn’s friendly obituaries. Owen Jones celebrated him not only for all of the above but also for ‘calling for peace talks when it was controversial to do so’ in Northern Ireland; praise he has reiterated in more than one place. It may be no surprise for Jones to rewrite history in such a manner, but less stridently left-wing voices have done so too; the editor of one prominent Labour website claimed that the presence of Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness at Benn’s funeral was a ‘reminder of the difference he made’ as though this were a positive thing.

Indeed, “Northern Ireland” has begun inexplicably to seep into several lists of the man’s positive contributions. These claims cannot be allowed to endure unchallenged; nor can they be allowed to become part of that acceptable list of “good things” we all agree Benn stood for.

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There can be no Oprah-ification of Northern Ireland’s Troubles. Some things are better left bottled up

06/03/2014, 08:29:54 AM

by Kevin Meagher

Sabres are the only weapons that have never been decommissioned in Northern Ireland. The reward for Peter Robinson rattling his, has been the creation of a “judge-led” review of how the British Government has been dealing with Irish republican “On-The-Runs” for the past decade.

This follows the collapse of the Old Bailey trial last month against John Downey, charged with the IRA’s Hyde Park bombing in 1982 in which four soldiers were killed. It brought to light the scheme by which 180 or so republicans like Downey who had evaded the authorities were sent letters confirming, in effect, that they would not be prosecuted on returning home to Northern Ireland.

For republicans, this is merely an extension of the prisoner release programme which took place after the Good Friday Agreement was signed in 1998 and no big deal. For Robinson, it amounts to a secret deal letting untried killers off the hook – and Ulster unionism doesn’t let any chance to yell “sell out” pass it by.

Yet what the government has conceded is a long way short of the “full judicial review” (a la Lord Saville’s inquiry into Bloody Sunday) that Robinson initially called for last Wednesday. According to the published terms of reference, the as yet unnamed judge will be tasked with producing “a full public account of the operation and extent” of the policy for dealing with On the Runs and to “determine whether any letters sent through the scheme contained errors”.

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As usual, what goes on in Northern Ireland stays in Northern Ireland

14/07/2013, 12:15:47 PM

by Kevin Meagher

So thirty-two police officers were injured, an MP was knocked unconscious by a projectile, hundreds were rioting in the streets, water cannons and baton rounds were used against civilians in a British city and yet it didn’t make the top five news stories on Friday night’s BBC Ten O’Clock News?

Welcome to Northern Ireland; that far-away place full of violent Irish people who seem to actually enjoy fighting and causing trouble. This is at least seems to be the default view of Britain’s political and media classes, that’s of course when they’re not completely ignoring the place.

There’s more attention paid to disturbances on the other side of the world than there is to the same thing happening in our own backyard. British politics long ago became acclimatised to Northern Ireland as a ‘little local difficulty.’ Not an eyelid does it now bat.

Friday was the “Glorious Twelfth” – the anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne in 1690 when Protestant King William III of Orange defeated Catholic King James II. It’s a big deal for Ulster’s protestants and marks the high point of the “marching season”. In the rest of Britain, the celebration of royal occasions are either marked by street parties or, better still, studiously ignored.

Not in Northern Ireland, but the historical significance is merely a footnote. It’s unlikely that the loyalists throwing golf balls at police officers are history buffs, despite waving ceremonial swords in defiance of the parades commission’s ruling that a contentious Orange march could not proceed through a nationalist enclave in north Belfast.

This is where Democratic Unionist MP, Nigel Dodds, was struck by a brick and knocked unconscious. He was booted out of the Commons chamber the other day for implying the Northern Ireland Secretary, Theresa Villiers, was lying; so he’s not had a great week. Normally, our politicians are only used to metaphorical brickbats being hurled in their direction. In response, the police fired water cannons at the protestors. In Britain the use of kettling is enough to cause liberal apoplexy.

When blasting high-pressure water jets at civilians is insufficient, the police rely on the wonderfully euphemistic Attenuating Energy Projectile instead. These are sometimes called baton rounds, which is itself a euphemism for plastic bullets. Twenty-two were fired at protestors on Friday night alone. Many of them were children and a 14 year-old was among those eventually arrested. Throughout the Troubles, seventeen people – ten aged under 18 – were killed by plastic bullets, yet their regular tactical use merits little more than a passing remark in the British media.

Last night saw another bout of violence. As the BBC nonchalantly puts it this morning: “Officers were attacked with petrol bombs, fireworks, laser pens and stones in the Woodvale area. Police fired 10 baton rounds and deployed water cannon.”

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Loyalism’s one-sided love affair with the British state

11/12/2012, 07:00:19 AM

by Kevin Meagher

The troubles have ended, but Northern Ireland’s culture war is in full swing.

Last week’s vote by Belfast city council to limit flying the union flag above the city hall and a couple of other municipal buildings from 365 days a year to twenty has resulted in a week of rioting, attacks on the police and death threats to moderate politicians of the Alliance party.

Last night a police car parked outside the office of its deputy party leader, East Belfast MP Naomi Long, was set on fire by a loyalist gang – while an officer was still inside (thankfully he escaped unhurt). There was also rioting in south Belfast, causing the police service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) to deploy water cannons (which have never been used in Britain).

A trifle of an issue for most Britons, the decision over the flag was, for a loyalist community that famously paints its kerbstones red, white and blue, a decision that cut to the wick. Loyalism, a creed that is filled with suspicion and the narrative of betrayal – both real and imagined – now believes the Fenian hordes are banging at the gate.

One by one their cherished citadels fall. Stormont, that bulwark of unionist ascendancy, is now home to a power-sharing arrangement that sees unionists sit down not only with Catholics, but former IRA men.

The “right” of their loyal orders to parade (never march) through predominantly Catholic areas is now curtailed by the hated parades commission, (surely the British state’s most idiosyncratic quango?)

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Villiers should learn from her ancestor in approaching Northern Ireland job

05/09/2012, 04:03:17 PM

by Kevin Meagher

While the British political class pores over the cabinet reshuffle, Belfast underwent yet another night of rioting, the third in a row. Sixty police officers have been injured so far this week. Here politics is visceral. The ups and downs of Westminster village life are quite superfluous.

Territory remains at the heart of every problem in Northern Ireland. While the meta-issue of sovereignty remains an irreconcilable difference, it’s that recurrent micro-issue of parading which is fuelling this latest crisis.

The “right” of protestant loyal orders to march through predominantly Catholic communities is a long-running sore, partly relieved by the creation of the Parades Commission (one of our more idiosyncratic quangos) to adjudicate on whether the most contentions marches can go ahead.

The commission is now reviled by unionists. So much so, that a banned parade in north Belfast still went ahead last weekend, causing much of the subsequent trouble we have seen. Loyalists (less respectable unionists), without the leadership to exert influence in mainstream politics, assert their territorial claim the old fashioned way, by taking to the streets. This in turn creates a fertile climate for dissident republicans to burrow into Sinn Fein’s urban powerbase, as an emboldened Catholic population refuses to have sand kicked in its face any longer.

A little local difficulty? Hardly. There is a real risk that the rioting in north Belfast, will escalate into a wider conflict. Later this month loyalists will be back in force to the same spot, expecting to march past Catholics in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the Ulster Covenant (where half a million Ulstermen signalled their opposition to Home Rule). Dissident republicans will be looking to stop them, undermining Sinn Fein for good measure.

Enter Theresa Villiers as the new secretary of state for Northern Ireland. Hers is a unique in-tray. There’s not really any policy in the Northern Ireland Office, it’s all raw politics; navigating a pathway through brittle egos, vested interests and implacable enmities. It’s a role where you are always going to upset someone. Northern Ireland is, after all, a small place with too many politicians.

Unlike Tony Blair, David Cameron lets his secretary of state do the talking. All parties complain that they no longer get face time with the British prime minister, which makes Villiers’ appointment all the more important. The buck really does stop with her.

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Finucane should shock and appall us – and compel us to act

14/10/2011, 05:24:15 PM

by Kevin Meagher

A family sits down to dinner on a dark Sunday evening. They hear the sound of breaking glass from the front hall. The parents jump up to see what has happened. They find a man dressed in black standing in the hallway. The father slams closed the glass kitchen door in a bid to keep the intruder away from his family. A bullet smashes the glass and the father – shot – falls to the floor.

The intruder enters the kitchen and stands over the wounded man. His terrified wife and three young children look on. The gunmen calmly takes aim and opens fire, pumping round after round into the man’s broken and bloodied body. He is shot 14 times in all; with five bullets entering his head. A ricocheted bullet strikes his wife in the ankle.

Screams and smoke fill the air. The gunman, composed throughout, leaves. Job done. (more…)

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