Five Derry men were forced to attend Strand Road PSNI base to sign a so-called “terror register” in what Saoradh believes will become a conveyer-belt approach to the imprisonment of their activists. New legislation allows targeted individuals to be required to provide a large volume of personal information to police databases, including details of vehicles used by family members, bank accounts and movements across the border. It is feared the register may be used to justify imprisonment of activists by non-jury courts, or even to ratchet pressure on some to turn informer. This week, PSNI members in Derry attempted to force five republicans to attend individual interviews to complete the register, but activists refused to enter a closed room with PSNI members, resulting in a stand-off. Among the items of information demanded were details of foreign travel, passport details, accommodation addresses, national insurance numbers, photographs for facial recognition data and fingerprints. Saoradh said the demands for personal information were in breach of individual human rights. “This highly invasive legislation enforced by British Crown Forces has already had a major impact upon those living in Derry as a border city,” they said. “The overall controlling nature has not only resulted in those affected being prohibited to cross the British-implemented border for the likes of fuel or a trip to the beach, but has had wider implications for their family members.” The mechanisms were “designed for failure” they said, and would ultimately “revive the conveyer belt of the British justice system which will, not for the first time, see further incarcerations of Irish republicans”. Saoradh called on politicians in the North to spell out their position on the register and if they have proposals to oppose it. “Saoradh will continue to highlight and expose the British Establishments roles in occupying Ireland while other sit in talking shops with their heads in the proverbial sand,” they added.
Denis Bradley was keen to move on in the latest Forward Together podcast interview to discuss the constitutional position of Northern Ireland. “Well that’s the one that intrigues me because I don’t know the answer!,” he says.
“First of all I think something very important happened within the last couple of weeks and has not received attention. And that is that the Europeans have said if there a no deal situation we will still have to deal with the Northern Ireland situation. That’s a massive movement.”
Denis insists that he does not believe that the re-imposition of a hard border is possible. People in border areas – “the local farmer, the local shopkeeper, the local child” – have now become too used to being without borders. “And anyway, all the border structures would be within green territory. What I mean by green territory is from here [Derry] to Dundalk is basically – with a few exceptions, a few pockets – it’s basically a nationalist homeland. So to think that you could do that [impose a hard border] is thinking that you can put the cavalry of the old western films out into the fort somewhere.” But, in the analogy, the Apaches won’t stand for it.
He continues: “The Europeans are saying, if there’s no deal…. we will not deal with the British government until we solve this problem. I think that brings us to a new place. To some degree it takes the sweat off Leo Varadkar. But I also think it’s an understanding that we’re different. That’s what makes us different from Scotland…. I think the fascinating thing about Brexit is that it was an English construct. And it is going to leave England incredibly unsettled for a long period of time. Whether that is for five years, or 10 years, or a generation, I do not know.”
That, in turn, leads to a new conversation about the future of Northern Ireland, including the potential All Ireland Forum, favoured by Denis. “What we need is for a conversation to start,” he says. “What we need is engagement from all the different parts of this island.” But, he warns: “I do see unionism’s propensity to go back in on itself and at this difficult moment not to engage. I can understand why this is. They come from a position that nationalism can lose 20 times or 40 times – unionism can only lose once… They will become incredibly defensive.”
Denis wonders if unionism and loyalism is beginning a process of change. “My contact with loyalism over the last 20 years has been substantial and they have been very angry with the DUP, because they feel betrayed by the DUP and they feel that the DUP looks down their nose at them. I think they are much less willing to be radicalised into creating havoc on the streets if we lose the ‘precious union’ or the ‘precious union’ is under threat.”
But Denis adds that “the southern government and parties say this is crazy, this is not the right time” to call for a border poll. He continues: “Of course it’s the wrong time and it’s crude, it’s simplistic, and crude and wrong to have a border poll now. That’s as crude as you can get. The difficulty is that if you take that off the table, I’m not convinced unionism would move at all. It will stay within its own narrow ground. It won’t move out into engagement.
“I think that the border poll, or the possibility of a border poll, at least challenges unionism. And I think Peter Robinson was hinting at that. I think Peter Robinson was prepared to look at that and make his people ready for that…. Robinson seems to be this lone voice and we haven’t heard much else coming forth. I think it was Colum Eastwood who made a statement, which I thought had a lot of validity – he said it’s very hard to have a conversation with people who don’t want to talk to you. Is there civic society within unionism which is prepared to talk? Nationalism will talk.”
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.
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“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?”
