Whilst we are waiting for the impact, or otherwise, of Boris ‘the hype’ Johnson, Newton Emerson makes a sharp observation in the Irish News on what is actually going on in the undergrowth of British politics… An inordinate amount of the mess the UK has got itself into over Brexit is due to prime minister Theresa May making immigration a red line. This set in chain a remorseless jigsaw of EU legal logic.Without free movement it is impossible to remain in the single market, creating the bulk of the practical problems in managing the border.Without single market membership, May could only agree to a backstop for Britain that covered the customs union. The Northern Ireland backstop covers both, creating the potential sea border that made her withdrawal agreement unsellable to the DUP and others in Westminster.Yet May continued to seek every other benefit of the single market by promising continued regulatory alignment with the EU.The result was pithily described by Fraser Nelson, editor of the Spectator, as: “Remain, without freedom of movement.”This is why it is so intriguing that Boris Johnson, by far the favourite to succeed May, is rubbing out her red line. The paradox has been that immigration only affects the lower economic end of the Brexit vote. The bulk of that vote is in the wealthy south which feels invulnerable enough to the downside of its lifestyle choices to rough out the next 10-15 years. Frankly, immigrants don’t pose any kind of a threat to local livelihoods in the way they are perceived in the post industrial wastelands of Northern England or south Wales. Newton notes: Last week, he proposed an amnesty for the UK’s estimated half a million illegal immigrants, lamenting they cannot properly “take part in the economy” and “pay their taxes” and ridiculing the idea significant numbers could be deported. He concludes: The EU says it will reopen May’s withdrawal agreement if there is a “fundamental change” in the UK’s red lines – a position with the crucial endorsement of the Irish and French governments.Immigration has to a large extent been the UK’s only red line and changing it would unlock everything.Johnson strongly advocated continued single membership for years, right up to the referendum. If consistency is any guide to his honesty, that might be worth noting. The backstop was a British idea. But the need for it could die along with May’s singular obsession with curbing immigration. The narrow view of the caretaker PM failed to allow for the fact that immigration is to do with a skills shortage in the native population. That’s a shortfall in domestic policy that certainly was not imposed by the EU. If that’s the way Johnson plays it, it will of course constitute a 180 degree, roaring handbrake turn from his grandstanding on the matter during the Referendum. With Mr Johnson the ever inconstant, getting into a Number 10, it appears, is all that matte
An amendment has been made to legislation at Westminster which prevents
a crash Brexit coming about by the suspension of the London parliament
unless Stormont is restored.
A majority of 41 approved an amendment that blocks suspension of
Westminster between 9 October and 18 December, unless Sinn Fein, the
DUP, Dublin and London all agree to bring back the Six County
power-sharing Executive.
The bizarre legislative manoeuvre is a result of parliamentary tactics
to block a hard Brexit. The amendment resulted from a number of changes
to legislation initially passed last week to continue ad hoc Direct Rule
and postpone an Assembly election in the North.
There is concern that the likely next British Prime Minister, Boris
Johnson, intends to prorogue or suspend Westminster in order to force
through a no-deal Brexit, crashing Britain out of the EU and
disastrously taking the Six Counties of the north of Ireland with it.
Today’s development has dramatically increased the linkage between the
Brexit crisis and the ongoing political crisis in the North.
Political commentator Robert Peston said: “If Boris Johnson wants to
prorogue or suspend parliament to force through no-deal, the only way he
can now do so — to get round NI bill amendment — is to somehow restore
devolved government by mid October. Fascinating to see if that now
becomes top priority for him and the DUP.”
Last week, the traditional disinterest of the Westminster parliament to
events the north in Ireland came to a sudden end when amendments were
passed by Labour MPs, with the acquiescence of the current London
government under Theresa May, to introduce abortion and same-sex
marriage in the Six Counties.
That was a significant shot across the bows of both the DUP and the
Hard-Brexiteers led by Boris Johnson. But today’s development is another
steep escalation in a political civil war in Britain.
One of those to support the measure was London’s culture, media and
sport minister Margot James, who resigned from her post to do so. Among
a series of other British cabinet ministers who did not vote and who are
understood not to have had permission to miss it were the chancellor,
Philip Hammond; the justice secretary, David Gauke; the business
secretary, Greg Clark; and Rory Stewart, the international development
secretary. The current British Direct Ruler Karen Bradley also
abstained.
The scale of the victory highlights the struggle Johnson will have to
impose his will over a parliament without a Tory majority and where
Conservative internal discipline has almost collapsed.
The DUP said the vote was “designed to weaken the hand” of the next
prime minister. But Sinn Féin’s Máirtín Ó Muilleoir said Brexit
‘sabre-rattling’ from Boris Johnson must be faced down by the Dublin
government and the EU if he becomes the next British Prime Minister.
Mr Ó Muilleoir said: “To date there has been nothing genuine or sensible
coming from either of the two contenders to succeed Theresa May as Tory
Leader and British Prime Minister.
“Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt have been pandering to the hard-right in
the Tory Party by dismissing the Backstop and stressing their
willingness to leave the EU without a deal on October 31st.
“Boris Johnson in particular has been so adamant about a no-deal Brexit
that EU Chief Negotiator Michel Barnier has stated that Britain will
have to ‘face the consequences’ of leaving without an agreement.”
Mr Ó Muilleoir pointed to official reports which have warned that a
no-deal Brexit would plunge Britain into recession.
“That is the reality of the economic catastrophe that Boris Johnson and
his supporters in the DUP are prepared to foist upon these islands,” he
said. “If, as expected, he does become the next British Prime Minister,
this reckless sabre-rattling and posturing must be faced down by the
Dublin government and the rest of the EU 27.”
The DUP said the government ‘can’t have it both ways’ and that a ‘choice has to be made’. Credit: PA
The DUP has warned that the UK Government is “running very close” to a time when it will have to choose between direct rule or devolution in Northern Ireland.
MPs voted to accept amendments from the House of Lords to extend abortion rights to women in Northern Ireland and also permit same-sex marriage.
During the debate on the Northern Ireland (Executive Function) Bill, the DUP’s Westminster leader Nigel Dodds claimed the norms of devolution are being eroded. 65 Conservative MPs voted for the amendments. 57 voted against.
He said: “What we see is the setting aside of every parliamentary norm, every norm about consultation and consideration.
“The reality is we are being very, very selective to legislate on some of the
most contentious and divisive issues on which there is no consensus, but leave aside hundreds of other issues on which there is consensus and which there is a common-sense approach that there should be action taken.
“So why don’t we have direct rule and legislate on all these issues or respect devolution?
“You can’t have it both ways, and I think we are running very close to the
time where that clear choice will have to be made.”
The revised amendment was brought forward in the Lords on Wednesday to address ‘technical problems’ with the change to legislation approved by the Commons on Monday.
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Terminations in Northern Ireland are only allowed in cases where a woman’s life is at risk or if there is a danger of permanent and serious damage to her mental or physical health.
DUP MP Ian Paisley said the Bill had been “hijacked” by MPs
pursuing their own “pet subjects”.
He said: “It has been hijacked and used as a vehicle for every other subject
under the sun.
Sorry, this content isn’t available on your device.
“It is wrong that Northern Ireland is now going to be subjected to serious and perverse changes to their laws without proper scrutiny, without proper
negotiation, without proper regulation.”
Mr Paisley said these were “the most extreme laws that will ever affect anyone in the whole of the United Kingdom with regards to abortion… laws that are prohibited in this part of the United Kingdom but that members will inflict on our part of the United Kingdom in order to make a cheap political point”.
Tory MP Fiona Bruce called for Northern Irish politicians to be able to take decisions on these issues.
She said: “Let them decide on such sensitive issues.
“We talk here about the importance of not being colonial. But what is this? Is this what new colonialism looks like?”
DR. Eamon Phoenix. Irish News. Belfast. Thursday, July 18, 2019
(Dr Éamon Phoenix is a historian and commentator and a member of the Taoiseach’s Expert Advisory Group on Centenaries).
This week marks the 50th anniversary of the first two deaths of the Northern Ireland Troubles. The death of an innocent Derry man, Sam Devenney – as a direct result of a brutal police assault in his own home during rioting coincided with that of Francis McCloskey, an elderly farmer during an RUC baton charge in Dungiven, Co.Derry. Since October 5 1968 the 50-year-old unionist state had been rocked to its foundations by the rising challenge of the civil rights movement. The events in Derry on that day as unarmed marchers were batoned by the RUC under the direction of a one-party unionist regime had shocked UK and world opinion. In the dramatic aftermath, half a century of masterly inactivity by successive Westminster governments at the treatment of the Nationalist minority in its own back yard was reversed as the Labor government of Harold Wilson forced the Stormont cabinet of Terence O’Neill to commit to a raft of reforms which cut through the dams which Craigavon’s ‘Orange State’ had erected to secure its ascendancy in perpetuity. As a result, and in spite of Whitehall pressure, the cabinet baulked at the notion of ‘one man, one vote’ – the iconic civil rights demand. In vain, it seemed, O’Neill warned his colleagues that ‘without a commitment to reform, the British would no longer stand aloof’ and could use the ‘financial lever to the disadvantage of a recalcitrant Northern Ireland’. From the outset, Wilson recognized the insidious influence of ‘a black reactionary group’ within the O’Neill cabinet centred on William Craig and the able Brian Faulkner, while outside Ian Paisley alleged an IRA conspiracy and used his club-wielding supporters to harass Civil Rights marches, notably in Armagh on November 30 1968. In vain, the RUC Inspector General, Sir Albert Kennedy, warned the reactionary Home Affairs Minister Craig on November 25 that the Civil Rights demand had nothing to do with ‘the old bogey of partition’ but was concerned with inequality. He also warned of the danger of ‘catastrophic conflict’ if the demand for ‘one man, one vote’ was withheld. As world opinion swung powerfully behind the Civil Rights Campaign and O’Neill warned that ‘Ulster was at the crossroads’, the radical People’s Democracy’s ‘Long March’ form Belfast to Derry at the New Year was savagely ambushed by armed Loyalists at Burntollet on March 4. Scores of young marchers were bludgeoned into the swollen River Faughan by sectarian thugs, some of them B Specials while their RUC escort failed to protect them. It was a miracle that no-one died in the frenzied attack. That night the RUC invaded the Bogside, hurling sectarian abuse at residents. Burntollet marked a watershed in the deteriorating situation in the North. It fuelled a rise in sectarian tensions, reinvigorated the civil rights campaign and emboldened the unionist right wing. On March 26 the leading Protestant civil rights leader, the late Ivan Cooper – by now an elected MP – had to run the gauntlet of a incensed Loyalist crowd who gate-crashed a civil rights meeting in Limavady Town Hall. Subjected to blood-curdling threats, Cooper had to be escorted from the building by the RUC while a leading Orangeman appealed for calm. A shattered Cooper told the Irish News: “I got the impression the crowd wanted to kill me. I have never been in a crowd so hostile in my life.” O’Neill, undermined by a series of cabinet resignations over his reform policies, had called a general election in which his hope of a moderate upsurge failed to materialize. The embattled PM finally resigned on April 28 1969. He was, as he put it, ‘blown out of office’ by a series of mysterious explosions at key installations, which turned out to be with work of the illegal UVF[Ulster Volunteer Fore]. As the uncharismatic country squire, Major Chichester-Clark, replaced O’Neill fresh rioting erupted in Derry on April 19 following a government ban on a Civil Rights march. Among the casualties was 42-year old Samuel Devenney, a quiet, popular family man who worked as a hearse driver for a local undertaker. As Bishop Edward Daly, then a local curate, records: “Sammy was an inoffensive man who did not enjoy robust health.” He had been chatting to a friend at his front door in William Street when a group of rioters ran though his house to evade arrest. Devenney was then subjected to a savage beating by members of the police force [RUC] while a senior officer stood by. He sustained serious injuries from which he did not recover. In the aftermath of the attack, Fr Daly visited the house to find ‘blood everywhere’. He noted: “None of us had previously witnessed anything like the ferocity of the police action.” With riot police infesting the Bogside, the situation threatened to spiral out of control. The situation was only retrieved when John Hume and civic leaders arranged for a mass exodus of residents to the nearby Creggan. Meanwhile, Hume urged the liberal-minded Minister of Home Affairs, Robert Porter, to order a police withdrawal from the area. Porter agreed and an uneasy peace was restored. However, the gulf between the police and the nationalist community was now unbridgeable. Meanwhile, as Spring turned to Summer, sectarian tensions rose in Belfast, especially on the Crumlin Road and at Unity Flats, a small Catholic enclave at the foot of the Shankill Road. The RUC were deployed and vigilantes were formed in the Shankill and Ardoyne. On the Twelfth there was serious sectarian rioting in North Belfast, Derry , Lurgan and Dungiven. James Callaghan, the Labour Home Secretary, noted how the nature of the violence had changed, becoming more insurgent, intense and prolonged. The Sunday Times commented ominously: “The monster of sectarian violence is well out of its cage, particularly in Belfast.” As ever, the most serious trouble was in Derry where hundreds of youths confronted the RUC who used water cannons. At the same time an Orange parade through the nationalist town of Dungiven twenty miles away was the trigger for sustained rioting. The town had been the center of serious disturbances in 1958 when a non-traditional Orange parade had led to conflict and a boycott of Protestant traders. At the time, the RUC Inspector General had blamed the trouble on Orange ‘hotheads’ from the nearby loyalist village of Bovevagh who insisted on a provocative march. Since then an Orange hall had been erected in the Dungiven and annual parades forced through the town. As Scarman observed, this was “a provocation to Dungiven Catholics in the inflamed conditions of 1969”. The parade that July 12 faced a peaceful protest but violence erupted that evening when a Catholic crowd of 300 attacked the Orange hall. In response, the outlying Orangemen threatened to come in from the countryside to defend the building. According to evidence given to the Scarman Tribunal later, on the night of 13/14 July, as rioting continued, Head Constable Irwin and a dozen constables launched a baton charge. The 200-strong nationalist crowd retreated and, in the melee, police saw a man lying on the footpath . This was Francis McCloskey (66), a local farmer . He died in hospital a few hours later from head injuries. He was the first official victim of the Troubles (1968-94). As Scarman noted: “The death of Mr McCloskey became a cause celebre in Northern Ireland.” Though the police denied any contact with the fleeing crowd it was widely alleged that Mr McCloskey had been ‘a victim of police brutality’. Over 4,000 people attended his funeral on July 17 where Fr. George Doherty told mourners that no injustice justified the use of violence. As Mr. McCloskey was being laid to rest, word spread in Derry of the death of Sam Devenney, three months after being assaulted by the RUC. An investigation by a senior RUC officer had unearthed ‘a conspiracy of silence’ among the force. Over 20,000 people followed Mr Devenney’s coffin to the City Cemetery. Ironically on that same day, July 20, the outside world was enraptured by images of Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the moon. However, as Bishop Daly noted wryly: “This event was hardly noticed in Derry. We were too preoccupied with events on this planet.” The two deaths were accompanied by the government decision to mobilize 400 B Specials – a notorious sectarian force. Indeed, on the night of July 14 a party of Specials had opened fire on a crowd of dancers emerging from the Castle Ballroom in Dungiven. The minister had forbidden the issuing of firearms to them. It was against this background of increasing mayhem that John Hume rushed to London to apprise the British government of the seriousness of the developing situation as the Apprentice Boys march, scheduled for Derry on 13 August, loomed ahead. Visibly exhausted by having “to act as Police Chief in Derry”, as told by Con Howard, an Irish diplomat in London, Hume described Derry as a powder-keg. Chichester-Clark’s government had lost control of the situation; there was mounting polarization across the North; intimidation of Catholics in Belfast and the real prospect of “a blood-bath”. The Derryman put his concerns to Lord Stonham, Callaghan’s deputy at the Home Office, at a three-hour meeting on 24 July 1969. In his view, the only course of action was the suspension of the Stormont government and the appointment of a Parliamentary Commission backed by the British army. Stonham listened politely but it was clear that the Wilson government was unprepared, in Callaghan’s phrase, to be ‘sucked into the Irish bog’. Northern Ireland was clearly on the verge of disaste
State ViolencePaul Whitters Julie Livingstone Secretary of State Plastic Bullets National Archives
Yesterday (17.07.19) the families of Paul Whitters and Julie Livingstone met with Secretary of State Karen Bradley to discuss the closure of files relating to their loved ones.In 1981 15 year-old Paul Whitters and 14 year-old Julie Livingstone were killed by the RUC and British army using plastic bullets in separate incidents. Earlier this year the families wrote to the Secretary of State following the discovery by the Pat Finucane Centre that separate files under the names of Paul and Julie were to remain closed for decades. They requested that these files be released to them and asked to meet to discuss this request. Accompanied by the Pat Finucane Centre and Relatives for Justice, Helen Whitters, the mother of Paul Whitters, with her brother, Paul’s uncle Tony Brown, and Robin Livingstone, brother of Julie met with Karen Bradley and her team of advisors yesterday morning. The meeting was deeply dissatisfactory.Mrs Bradley, with her team of advisors, outlined the circuitous decision making that results in files relating to children killed by the state being withheld from public view until the direct living relatives of those children are likely to have passed away. The families were told that there is nothing the secretary of state can do to intervene and release the files to the families without the families engaging in a process of seeking the files under a Freedom of Information request, as the files are the property of the National Archives at Kew, London, and no longer anything to do with her or her office. The NIO made the file on Paul Whitters secret in 2011 and on Julie Livingstone in 2014. They then sent these files to the National Archives. Once they did this, the families were told, the files became the property of the National Archives. There is no information as to why the files are closed other than it may be because of “health and safety” or because they contain “personal information”. Or health and safety is at risk because the files contain personal information. The advisors contradicted each other on this point. The people who made that decision are apparently so over worked with files they could not even be asked why they made this decision, as they could not possibly remember, and neither is there a discoverable audit of this decision making. The families have made clear that this is not credible and there is no question that they wish to see written names of living people in the files.This scandal obviously points to a wider issue that files can be closed, for reasons unrecorded except in the broadest of terms, passed onto the National Archives, where they then can be kept secret, but unreleasing them, even to the bereaved families of children killed, is much harder than making them secret. Speaking after the meeting Helen Whitters said “So the Secretary of State can’t tell us why the files are closed because the NIO has marked the files secret and because they are secret they claim not to know why they have marked them secret! The circular stupidity of this argument has left us speechless. This is about my son who was shot at almost point-blank range at 15 years of age and about the cruel death at 14 of Julie Livingstone. They were just children.“ It is worth noting that in 2011 the Historic Enquiries Team collapsed because of the illegality of investigations into state crimes and in 2014 the British Government was one of the signatories to the Stormont House Agreement legacy mechanisms. Notwithstanding the contemporaneous concentrated debate on how to ensure our post conflict society has a process which delivers truth, justice and acknowledgement to victims and survivors in a human rights compliant way, the mandarins with short memories in the NIO were in parallel engaged in a seemingly duplicitous process making files secret, in a one way system which side stepped transparency, scrutiny or fairness. The families have asked to see in writing the full legal framework in which these decisions have been made, continue to operate and to which the Secretary of State informs them that she cannot intervene to ensure that the files are released to the families. They will then consult to decide how to progress on this extraordinary vista of state impunity.
