Posted by Jim on August 20, 2017
Mickey Devine
A typical Derry lad
TWENTY-seven-year-old Micky Devine, from the Creggan in Derry city, was the third INLA Volunteer to join the H-Block hunger strike to the death.
Micky Devine took over as O/C of the INLA blanket men in March when the then O/C, Patsy O’Hara, joined the hunger strike but he retained this leadership post when he joined the hunger strike himself.
Known as ‘Red Micky’, his nickname stemmed from his ginger hair rather than his political complexion, although he was most definitely a republican socialist.
The story of Micky Devine is not one of a republican ‘super-hero’ but of a typical Derry lad whose family suffered all of the ills of sectarian and class discrimination inflicted upon the Catholic working-class of that city: poor housing, unemployment and lack of opportunity.
Micky himself had a rough life.
His father died when Micky was a young lad; he found his mother dead when he was only a teenager; married young, his marriage ended in separation; he underwent four years of suffering ‘on the blanket’ in the H-Blocks; and, finally, the torture of hunger-strike.
Unusually for a young Derry nationalist, because of his family’s tragic history (unconnected with ‘the troubles’), Micky was not part of an extended family, and his only close relatives were his sister Margaret, seven years his elder, and now aged 34, and her husband, Frank McCauley, aged 36.
CAMP
Michael James Devine was born on May 26th, 1954 in the Springtown camp, on the outskirts of Derry city, a former American army base from the Second World War, which Micky himself described as “the slum to end all slums”.
Hundreds of families – 99% (unemployed) Catholics, because of Derry corporation’s sectarian housing policy – lived, or rather existed, in huts, which were not kept in any decent state of repair by the corporation.
One of Micky’s earliest memories was of lying in a bed covered in old coats to keep the rain off the bed. His sister, Margaret, recalls that the huts were “okay” during the summer, but they leaked, and the rest of the year they were cold and damp.
Micky’s parents, Patrick and Elizabeth, both from Derry city, had got married in late 1945 shortly after the end of the Second World War, during which Patrick had served in the British merchant navy. He was a coalman by trade, but was unemployed for years.
At first Patrick and Elizabeth lived with the latter’s mother in Ardmore, a village near Derry, where Margaret was born in 1947. In early 1948 the family moved to Springtown where Micky was born in May 1954.
Although Springtown was meant to provide only temporary accommodation, official lethargy and sectarianism dictated that such inadequate housing was good enough for Catholics and it was not until the early ‘sixties that the camp was closed.
BLOW
During the ‘fifties, the Creggan was built as a new Catholic ghetto, but it was 1960 before the Devines got their new home in Creggan, on the Circular Road. Micky had an unremarkable, but reasonably happy childhood. He went to Holy Child primary school in Creggan.
At the age of eleven Micky started at St. Joseph’s secondary school in Creggan, which he was to attend until he was fifteen.
But soon the first sad blow befell him. On Christmas eve 1965, when Micky was aged only eleven, his father fell ill; and six weeks later, in February 1966, his father, who was only in his forties, died of leukaemia.
Micky had been very close to his father and his premature death left Micky heartbroken.
Five months later, in July 1966, his sister Margaret left home to get married, whilst Micky remained in the Devines’ Circular Road home with his mother and granny.
At school Micky was an average pupil, and had no notable interests.
STONING
The first civil rights march in Derry took place on October 5th, 1968, when the sectarian RUC batoned several hundred protesters at Duke Street. Recalling that day, Micky, who was then only fourteen wrote:
“Like every other young person in Derry my whole way of thinking was tossed upside down by the events of October 5th, 1968. I didn’t even know there was a civil rights march. I saw it on television.
“But that night I was down the town smashing shop windows and stoning the RUC. Overnight I developed an intense hatred of the RUC. As a child I had always known not to talk to them, or to have anything to do with them, but this was different
“Within a month everyone was a political activist. I had never had a political thought in my life, but now we talked of nothing else. I was by no means politically aware but the speed of events gave me a quick education.”
TENSION
After the infamous loyalist attack on civil rights marchers in nearby Burntollet, in January 1969, tension mounted in Derry through 1969 until the August 12th riots, when Orangemen – Apprentice Boys and the RUC – attacked the Bogside, meeting effective resistance, in the ‘Battle of the Bogside’. On two occasions in 1969 Micky ended up at the wrong end of an RUC baton, and consequently in hospital.
That summer Micky left school. Always keen to improve himself, he got a job as a shop assistant and over the next three years worked his way up the local ladder: from Hill’s furniture store on the Strand Road, to Sloan’s store in Shipquay Street, and finally to Austin’s furniture store in the Diamond (and one can get no higher in Derry, as a shop assistant).
British troops had arrived in August 1969, in the wake of the ‘Battle of the Bogside’. ‘Free Derry’ was maintained more by agreement with the British army than by physical force, but of course there were barricades, and Micky was one of the volunteers manning them with a hurley.
INVOLVED
At that time, and during 1970 and 1971, Micky became involved in the civil rights movement, and with the local (uniquely militant) Labour Party and the Young Socialists.
The already strained relationship between British troops and the nationalist people of Derry steadily deteriorated – reinforced by news from elsewhere, especially Belfast – culminating with the shooting dead by the British army of two unarmed civilians, Seamus Cusack and Desmond Beattie, in July of 1971, and with internment in August. Micky, by this time seventeen years of age, and also politically maturing, had joined the ‘Officials’, also known as the ‘Sticks’.
He became a member of the James Connolly ‘Republican Club’ and then, shortly after internment, a member of the Derry Brigade of the ‘Official IRA’.
‘Free Derry’ had become known by that name after the successful defence of the Bog side in August 1969, but it really became ‘Free Derry’, in the form of concrete barricades etc., from internment day. Micky was amongst those armed volunteers who manned the barricades
Typical of his selfless nature (another common characteristic of the hunger strikers), no task was too small for him.
He was ‘game’ to do any job, such as tidying up the office. Young men, naturally enough, wanted to stand out on the barricades with rifles: he did that too, but nothing was too menial for him, and he was always looking for jobs.
Bloody Sunday, January 30th, 1972, when British Paratroopers shot dead thirteen unarmed civil rights demonstrators in Derry (a fourteenth died later from wounds received), was a turning point for Micky. From then there was no turning back on his republican commitment and he gradually lost interest in his work, and he was to become a full-time political and military activist.
TRAUMA
Micky experienced the trauma of Bloody Sunday at first hand. He was on that fateful march with his brother-in-law, Frank, who recalls: “When the shooting started we ran, like everybody else, and when it was over we saw all the bodies being lifted.”
The slaughter confirmed to Micky that it was more than time to start shooting back. “How” he would ask, “can you sit back and watch while your own Derry men are shot down like dogs?”
Micky had written: “I will never forget standing in the Creggan chapel staring at the brown wooden boxes. We mourned, and Ireland mourned with us.
“That sight more than anything convinced me that there will never be peace in Ireland while Britain remains. When I looked at those coffins I developed a commitment to the republican cause that I have never lost.”
From around this time, until May when the ‘Official IRA’ leadership declared a unilateral ceasefire (unpopular with their Derry Volunteers), Micky was involved not only in defensive operations but in various gun attacks against British troops.
Micky’s commitment and courage had shone through, but no more so than in the case of scores of other Derry youths, flung into adulthood and warfare by a British army of occupation.
TRAGIC
In September, 1972, came the second tragic loss in Micky’s family life. He came home one day to find his mother dead on the settee with his granny unsuccessfully trying to revive her.
His mother had died of a brain tumour, totally unexpectedly, at the age of forty-five. Doctors said it had taken her just three minutes to die. Micky, then aged eighteen, suffered a tremendous shock from this blow, and it took him many months to come to terms with his grief.
Through 1973, Micky remained connected with the ‘Sticks’, although increasingly disillusioned by their openly reformist path. He came to refer to the ‘Sticks’ as “fireside republicans”, and was highly critical of them for not being active enough.
Towards the end of that year, Micky, then aged nineteen, got married. His wife, Margaret, was only seventeen. They lived in Ranmore Drive in Creggan and had two children: Michael, now aged seven and Louise, now aged five.
Micky and his wife had since separated.
In late 1974, virtually all the ‘Sticks’ in Derry, including Micky, joined the newly formed IRSP, as did some who had dropped out over the years. And Micky necessarily became a founder member of the PLA (People’s Liberation Army), formed to defend the IRSP from murderous attacks by their former comrades in the sticks.
In early 1975, Micky became a founder member of the INLA (Irish National Liberation Army) formed for offensive operational purposes out of the PLA.
The months ahead were bad times for the IRSP, relatively isolated, and to suffer a strength-sapping split when Bernadette McAliskey left, taking with her a number of activists who formed the ISP (Independent Socialist Party), since deceased.
They were also difficult months for the fledgling INLA, suffering from a crippling lack of weaponry and funds. Weakness which led them into raids for both as their primary actions, and rendered them almost unable to operate against the Brits.
Micky was eventually arrested on the Creggan. In the evening of September 20th, 1976, after an arms raid earlier that day on a private weaponry, in Lifford, County Donegal, from which the INLA commandeered several rifles and shotguns, and three thousand rounds of ammunition.
ARRESTED
Micky was arrested with Desmond Walmsley from Shantallow, and John Cassidy from Rosemount. Along on the operation, though never convicted for it, was the late Patsy O’Hara, with whom Micky used to knock around as a friend and comrade.
Micky was held and interrogated for three days in Derry’s Stand Road barracks, before being transported in Crumlin Road jail in Belfast where he spent nine months on remand.
He was sentenced to twelve years imprisonment on June 20th, 1977, and immediately embarked on the blanket protest. He was in H5-Block until March of this year when the hunger strike began and when the ‘no-wash, no slop-out’ protest ended, whereupon he was moved with others in his wing to H6-Block.
Mickey Devine final salute
Mickey Devine final salute
Like others incarcerated within the H-Blocks, suffering daily abuse and inhuman and degrading treatment, Micky realised – soon after he joined the blanket protest – that eventually it would come to a hunger strike, and, for him, the sooner the better. He was determined that when that ultimate step was reached he would be among those to hunger strike.
SEVENTH
On Sunday, June 21st, this year, he completed his fourth year on the blanket, and the following day he joined Joe McDonnell, Kieran Doherty, Kevin Lynch, Martin Hurson, Thomas McElwee and Paddy Quinn on hunger strike.
He became the seventh man in a weekly build-up from a four-strong hunger strike team to eight-strong. He was moved to the prison hospital on Wednesday, July 15th, his twenty fourth day on hunger strike.
With the 50 % remission available to conforming prisoners, Micky would have been due out of jail next September.
As it was, because of his principled republican rejection of the criminal tag he chose to fight and face death.
Micky died at 7.50 am on Thursday, August 201h, as nationalist voters in Fermanagh/South Tyrone were beginning to make their way to the polling booths to elect Owen Carron, a member of parliament for the constituency, in a demonstration – for the second time in less than five months – of their support for the prisoners’ demands.
Posted by Jim on August 19, 2017
The one sure way to enshrine free movement, free trade, and regulatory clarity in relations between the two parts of Ireland is to put them back together
Mary Dejevsky. Independent. London. Thursday, August 17, 2017
If you found the UK Government’s first Brexit “position paper” on avoiding a “cliff-edge” in trade borderline delusional, just try the second, on Northern Ireland. A lot of Irish magic will be needed if the proposals set out there are going to have any chance of success.
Three policies have commanded particular attention. On trade, most exchanges between Northern Ireland and the Republic would be regarded as local, and nothing to do with international rules at all. Except much hair-splitting about what constitutes small and medium-sized business. For the rest, tariff matters and payments would be handled by a whole new, hi-tech system – the UK’s track record of digital project management does not bode well.
As for the movement of people, well there would essentially be no need for change. Any risk that the Northern Irish-Republic of Ireland border could become a “back-door” into the UK (or vice versa) would be minimized because the Irish Republic is not – and would not be – a member of the Schengen, so the UK and Ireland could keep their own special passport-free regime, while keeping the outer borders secure.
Except that there are no passport or ID checks between the UK and Ireland, whatever sort of papers you carry. Indeed, the only way, travelling by road, you know you have crossed from the Republic into Northern Ireland is a sign saying that the speed limit is now posted in miles per hour. Any indication that you are crossing into another country is vanishingly discreet. Like it or not, there is a “back door” (which predates both countries’ EU membership). Whether this longstanding “special arrangement” can continue after Brexit is another matter. How feasible is a “soft” border between a member and non-member of the EU?
Then there is food safety. Standards in Northern Ireland, the position paper boasts, are high, so there is really no need for any special checks on goods crossing what would become the EU border. But how well would that cheerful acceptance survive the first whiff of contaminated eggs, horsemeat masquerading as beef, or whatever comes next – in either direction?
Such problems were always lurking in the event of a UK vote for Brexit, and to an extent, with two different currencies, opportunities for gaming the system were always there. Strangely, though, the devolutionary focus during the referendum campaign was almost entirely on Scotland. What would happen if the Scots voted differently, and by a large margin, from the rest? (They did.) Would this spur demands for a new independence referendum? (Yes, and no.) What would come next? (Too soon to say.)
But the effect of Scottish independence in the event of Brexit was comparatively clear-cut. Scotland would become an independent state. It would be recognised as such by the UK and internationally. It would re-join the EU (oh yes, it would); it could be required to join the euro and Schengen, and there might well be a “hard” border with England. But everyone would know the score.
The position with Northern Ireland is infinitely more difficult. And it was made more so because a majority of the Northern Irish voted to remain in the European Union. The margin (56 – 44 per cent) was not as sweeping as in Scotland (62 – 38 per cent), but it was solid. It was also bigger than the margin of victory for Leave in the UK as a whole (52-48), but also in England (53 – 47 per cent).
One reason why Northern Ireland, despite its unionist majority, voted more like Scotland than England or Wales may be that people on both sides of the sectarian divide saw EU membership as a kind of guarantee for the continuation of the Good Friday agreement that had (mostly) brought peace. Without the EU, the relatively relaxed relations with the Republic, the free movement of people and free trade across the border would all be called into question.
This is where we are now, with the UK trying desperately to hold on to the gains from EU membership as they relate to Northern Ireland, while preparing to break from the EU in almost every other respect. It is neither a logical nor comfortable position. No wonder Ireland’s Prime Minister, Leo Varadkar, recently expressed his frustration not just with the pace of negotiation, but with the whole UK approach.
Happily – and unhappily – there is a solution, which is as simple and obvious as it is elusive. The one sure way to enshrine free movement, free trade, and regulatory clarity in relations between the two parts of Ireland is to put them back together. The North would thus remain in the EU – which is what a majority of those who took part in the referendum voted for – while the rest of the UK, aka Great Britain, would leave. The only border needed would be the sea.
How feasible would this be? Alas, despite the pro-EU vote in Northern Ireland, not at all – at least in the short term. The Northern Ireland parties may be finding it hard to form a new power-sharing government, now that the politicians who made peace have left the scene, and the unionist share of the vote may be declining, but a forced march to unity risks the peace.
The differences are not to be underestimated. From a distance, it is easy to condemn the recent clashes in the American south as “only” about a monument. But monuments – and flags – cannot be dismissed lightly. Over the decades they have sealed Ireland’s division. One person’s patriot is another’s traitor. The two communities remain fenced off from each other in Belfast and (London)Derry; if they find it so hard to share a city, how can they share a country?
And yet… Is it really beyond the bounds of wise states-people to devise a solution? Would a clearly federated state not be possible; a state, what is more, with world-class guarantees for the rights of what would become the Protestant minority? Is the fear that would precipitate a resort to arms really still there?
Since the Brexit vote, the unity question has been very quietly, very tentatively, reopened, after 10 years in which the Good Friday Agreement had pronounced it closed. But a twist of fate – the Conservatives’ need for the DUP’s parliamentary votes – at once enhanced the status of the DUP in Northern Ireland and regrettably put any new thinking on hold.
But such an obvious remedy to the Brexit-Northern Ireland conundrum cannot remain off limits for ever. Demographic change in the North is already affecting elections there. Socially and economically, the Republic is a very different country from the one it was before it joined the EU. Arguably, the country that has changed least, in its institutional attitudes, is the UK.
If only it could fully accept the Republic of Ireland as an independent sovereign state, with no need for colonial-era privileges such as passport-free travel and votes in UK elections. If only it chose to halt the generous protection that stunts Northern Ireland’s development and allows a loyalist minority to live in the past. If the UK made moves in this direction, some of the biggest stumbling blocks in the Brexit negotiations would melt away – with the bonus of normalized relations between Great Britain and Ireland – even if, in the end, we decided not to leave.
Posted by Jim on
With the prospects of Irish reunification appearing to grow in the
aftermath of the Brexit referendum, some elements within the 26 County
establishment have become increasingly nervous. Some reactionaries have
already called for the Good Friday peace Agreement to be rewritten in
the context of Britain’s departure from the European Union.
Last week, the former 26 County diplomatic figure Sean Donlon said
reunification should only take place with the support of unionists,
without seeing any inherent contradiction. Irish Times commentator
Fintan O’Toole this week also sought to move the goalposts, demanding a
higher but unspecified target beyond the requirement of a simple
majority for unification as outlined in the Good Friday Agreement.
The response comes amid efforts by Sinn Fein to encourage the
establishment parties to develop a coordinated approach on the issue.
Sinn Fein’s Gerry Kelly called on all nationalist parties across the
island to work together to deliver a united Ireland.
Delivering a speech in Ballina, County Mayo to commemorate the 1981
hunger strikes, Mr Kelly outlined his party’s vision of a “new, agreed
and United Ireland, upholding, protecting and respecting the rights of
all citizens” that would also uphold “the rights of citizens to be
British and Unionist”.
Speculation has grown that there is a growing belief in Fianna Fail they
the party should be open to a coalition government with Sinn Fein. Last
week, Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams said his party is “open to
negotiating with other parties to deliver a republican programme of
government”.
Mr Kelly threw dont the gauntlet to all the other parties in Ireland.
“I challenge the leaders of the SDLP, Fine Gael, and Fianna Fail to stop
hiding behind the mantra of now is not the time to discuss unity,” he
said.
“One hundred years on since 1916, as we face into Brexit, now is the
time not only to discuss unity, but to plan and deliver Irish Unity.”
“So Leo [Fine Gael leader and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar], Colm [SDLP leader
Colm Eastwood] and Micheal [Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin], this is
the time put aside your narrow party political interests, the time for
national leadership, the time to stand together to plan and deliver
Irish unity.
“That is the project that can define the coming political era. Sinn Fein
is willing to stand with all those in favour of unity.”
The north Belfast representative added: “Sinn Fein wants an Ireland that
is defined by hope, prosperity and opportunity for all citizens
irrespective of their age, gender, religious persuasion, cultural
identity, political affiliation, ethnic origin, or sexual orientation.”
Posted by Jim on
By Shashi Tharoor
On August 15, 1947, India won independence: a moment of birth that was
also an abortion, since freedom came with the horrors of the partition,
when East and West Pakistan were hacked off the stooped shoulders of
India by the departing British.
Seventy years later, it is hard to look back without horror at the
savagery of the country’s vivisection, when rioting, rape and murder
scarred the land, millions were uprooted from their homes, and billions
of rupees worth of property were damaged and destroyed.
There was an intangible partition, too. Friendships were destroyed,
families ruined, geography hacked, history misread, tradition denied,
minds and hearts torn apart.
The creation and perpetuation of Hindu-Muslim antagonism was the most
significant accomplishment of British imperial policy: the colonial
project of “divide et impera” (divide and rule) fomented religious
antagonisms to facilitate continued imperial rule and reached its tragic
culmination in 1947.
The British liked drawing lines on maps of other countries; they had
done it in the Middle East after World War I, and they did it again in
India. Partition was the coda to the collapse of British authority in
India in 1947.
The killing and mass displacement worsened as people sought frantically
to be on the “right” side of the lines the British were to draw across
their homeland. More than a million people died in the savagery that
accompanied the freedom of India and Pakistan; some 17 million were
displaced, and countless properties destroyed and looted. Lines meant
lives.
In that last, mad, headlong rush to freedom and partition, the British
emerge with little credit. Before World War II, they had no intention of
devolving power so rapidly, or at all. The experience of the elected
governments in the last years of the British Raj confirmed that the
British had never been serious about their proclaimed project of
promoting the responsible governance of India by Indians.
When the elected ministries of the Indian National Congress quit office
in protest against the British declaring war against Germany on India’s
behalf without consulting them, the British thought little of appointing
unelected Muslim Leaguers in their place and, in many cases, assuming
direct control of functions that had supposedly been devolved to
Indians. They openly helped the Muslim League take advantage of this
unexpected opportunity to exercise influence and patronage that their
electoral support had not earned them and to build up support while
their principal opponents languished in jail.
This was all part of the policy of divide and rule, systematically
promoting political divisions between Hindus and Muslims, defined as the
monolithic communities they had never been before the British.
The British had been horrified, during the Revolt of 1857, to see Hindus
and Muslims fighting side by side and under each other’s command against
the foreign oppressor. They vowed this would not happen again. “Divide
et impera was an old Roman maxim, and it shall be ours”, wrote Lord
Elphinstone. A systematic policy of fomenting separate consciousness
among the two communities was launched, with overt British sponsorship.
When restricted franchise was grudgingly granted to Indians, the British
created separate communal electorates, so that Muslim voters could vote
for Muslim candidates for Muslim seats. The seeds of division were sown,
to prevent a unified nationalist movement that could overthrow the
British.
No one in any responsible position in Britain as late as 1940 had any
serious intention whatsoever of relinquishing the Empire or surrendering
the jewel in His Majesty’s Crown to a rabble of nationalist Indians clad
in homespun. But the devastation of World War II meant that only
one-half of the phrase could survive: bled, bombed and battered for six
years, Britain could divide, but it could no longer rule.
The British – terrorised by German bombing, demoralised by various
defeats and large numbers of their soldiers taken prisoner, shaken by
the desertion of Indian soldiers and the mutiny of Indian sailors,
shivering in the record cold of the winter of 1945-46, crippled by power
cuts and factory closures resulting from a post-war coal shortage – were
exhausted and in no mood to focus on a distant Empire when their own
needs at home were so pressing.
They were also more or less broke: American loans had kept the economy
afloat and needed to be repaid, and even India was owed a sizeable debt.
Overseas commitments were no longer sustainable or particularly popular.
Exit was the only viable option: the question was what they would leave
behind – one India, two or several fragments?
Britain’s own tactics before and during the war ensured that by the time
departure came, the Muslim League had been strengthened enough to
sustain its demand for a separate homeland for Muslims, and the
prospects of a united India surviving a British exit had essentially
faded. Divide et impera had worked too well: a device meant to
perpetuate British rule in India ensured a united India could not
survive without the British. Two countries was what it would be.
The task of dividing the two nations was assigned to Sir Cyril
Radcliffe, a lawyer who had never been to India before and knew nothing
of its history, society or traditions. Radcliffe, perspiring profusely
in the unfamiliar heat, drew up his maps in less than five weeks,
dividing provinces, districts, villages, homes and hearts – and promptly
scuttled to Britain, never to return to India. The British Empire simply
crumbled in disorder. The British were heedless of the lives that would
be lost in their headlong rush to the exits.
The scars of the partition have lasted 70 years, even though India has
emerged as a thriving pluralist democracy while Pakistan – splitting
into two with the secession of the East as Bangladesh in 1971 – and
Bangladesh have encountered difficulties in maintaining democracy. But
India’s flourishing democracy of seven decades is no tribute to British
rule. It is a bit rich for the British to suppress, exploit, imprison,
torture and maim people for 200 years and then celebrate the fact that
they are a democracy at the end of it.
If Britain’s greatest accomplishment was the creation of a single
political unit called India, fulfilling the aspirations of visionary
Indian emperors from Ashoka to Akbar, then its greatest failure must be
the shambles of that original Brexit – cutting and running from the land
they had claimed to rule for its betterment, leaving behind a million
dead, 17 million displaced, billions of rupees of property destroyed,
and the flames of communal hatred blazing hotly across the ravaged land.
There is no greater indictment of the failures of British rule in India
than the tragic manner of its ending.
* Shashi Tharoor is an elected member of India’s parliament and chairs
its Foreign Affairs Committee. He is the prize-winning author of 16
books, including, most recently, Inglorious Empire: What the British Did
To India.
Posted by Jim on
Claims by the British government that they wish to impose no additional
border reinforcements in Ireland following their departure from the
European Union are being greeted with scepticism.
After months of contradictory and confused statements and stances, two
documents emerged this week which offered the prospect of setting out
the British position on key issues such as customs and immigration
controls.
However, the claim that the British government will make no effort to
prevent immigrants arriving to Britain via Ireland on foot of their
racially-motivated Brexit has already been widely ridiculed. A bizarre
‘do-nothing’ fudge on customs controls in the north of Ireland has been
greeted similarly.
The Irish border currently has 275 border crossings, more than twice the
number the EU has along its entire frontier with eastern Europe. Despite
detailed plans being advanced for weeks, suggestions to use advanced spy
cameras and electromagnetic scanning on the border to impose controls
appear to have been shelved for now.
However, fears remains that the documents could form the first gambit in
a blame game over moves which could ultimately return the Irish border
to its status as the most militarised frontier in western Europe.
The hardline unionist DUP said it had persuaded the British government
to “rule out” any Brexit that would involve a border between the two
islands. They said they had convinced London to reject the treatment of
the Six Counties as a separate entity, subject to separate rules, or for
it to remain part of the EU customs union or single market.
The current British position puts the onus on the Dublin government and
the EU to impose border restrictions to prevent illegal immigration and
trade controls. British officials claimed that their hands-off proposals
could be open to “fraud” but that this could be “managed”.
However, former UKIP leader and prominent Brexiteer Nigel Farage said it
was “of concern” that EU citizens would still be able to move freely
across the Irish border without any immigration checks. The Liberal
Democrats said the latest proposal “has more holes in it than a
colander” as it admitted Britain would not reclaim control of its
borders.
The 26 County Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney said
significant questions remained unanswered, but accepted the British
papers as a negotiating stance.
He joined in warnings about delivery, but welcomed stated commitments to
upholding the 1998 Good Friday Agreement and the Common Travel Area, as
well as EU-related funding for the border area.
Referring to the paper on future customs arrangements published on
Tuesday, Mr Coveney said he welcomed language he had not heard before
about a ‘customs union partnership’ which, it was argued, would negate
the need for customs checks. However, he said some proposals were
“unworkable.. in the context of smuggling and so on”.
Sinn Fein’s Michelle O’Neill rubbished the plans, describing them as
“big on aspiration and light on clarity”, “big on rhetoric but thin on
actual commitments”.
She said the proposals on customs had been dismissed within hours as
deluded, untested and unrealistic.
“What the British government are doing is treating us as collateral
damage,” she said. “They are very interested in the needs of the British
people but not of the needs of the people here who voted to remain
within the European Union.
“I think we could be forgiven for thinking that the British government
in this latest document are using us and our unique circumstances here
to try to put pressure on the European Union.”
Labour MP Conor McGinn, who grew up in the North of Ireland, accused
Theresa May’s government of “vagueness and posturing.”
“These proposals on a light touch border are lighter still on detail,”
Mr McGinn said.
Sinn Fein’s Brexit spokesperson David Cullinane aid today that the
British proposals for a “bespoke” customs union after March 2019 show
that the Tories “have not quite grasped the reality of the situation
that Britain finds itself in”.
However, he welcomed the fact that the London government had
acknowledged that a full and complete break from the customs union and
the single market would not be possible by March 2019.
“Furthermore, the proposal to extend article 50 requires the agreement
of all 27 states, including the Irish government.
“The Irish government should stand up for the national interest and
should only agree to an extension that is in our interests, that is, the
economy, trade, the rights of citizens, and the protection of the Good
Friday Agreement, in all of its aspects.
“The British government’s policy of Brexit is bad for our economy, trade
and agreements.
“The best solution is for the whole island of Ireland to remain within
the EU; the single market, customs union, and common travel area
together. This can be achieved through designated special status for the
North within the EU, avoiding any economic border, and retaining the
free movement of people, goods, and services.”
Sinn Fein MEP Martina Anderson said the current Tory Brexit agenda is an
attack on the human rights of the people of the north.
“The fact that the proposals published this week by the British
government on dealing with Brexit and the north is totally silent on the
human rights, particularly the European Convention on Human Rights, and
continued access the courts over breaches to human rights legislation is
very concerning.
“The Tories talk about being committed to the Good Friday Agreement in
all of its parts but appear to have ignored their human rights
obligations under the agreement.
“The entirety of the Good Friday Agreement, including the human rights
it safeguards, must be protected in the Brexit negotiations.
“The best way to protect our rights is for the north to secure
designated special status within the EU.”
There are also concerns that Britain’s new diplomatic offensive amounts
to little more than covering propaganda for aggressive actions down the
line. Notably, after months of encouragement in the British right-wing
media for Ireland to leave the EU as the solution to the border problem,
traditional anti-Irish rhetoric has returned.
An openly racist piece for Country Squire Magazine, headlined ‘Get
Stuffed, Eire’, has attracted widespread indignation.
In a long rant claiming the “best things in Eire are all British”,
author Jim Browne labelled Ireland a country “where the burglars from
Britain – with surnames like Kettle and Rafferty – return to build
eyesore ‘palaces’ in ratholes like Rathkeale (a small Irish town swollen
by the proceeds of crime)”.