A Solution for Ulster: Reply to Roderick Moore, by Adrian
Yalland
It was with some interest that I read Roderick Moore's
"Plan B for Ulster: Repartition and Resettlement" (Free
Life No.37, September 2001), proposing a solution to the never
ending problems associated with Northern Ireland.
Firstly let me say that - however much I disagree with the
proposed solution, I sympathise with the analysis of the present
situation. There is little doubt that the so called Good Friday
Agreement is doomed to fail.
The Agreement itself is little more than a covert attempt to buy
peace by the appeasement of republican terrorists. The inevitable
result of the governments accommodation of the IRA is a de
facto right for them to remain armed in order to "police
their own communities". The IRA argue that they should not be
subject to the same laws as others in Northern Ireland as those who
enforce the laws (the Royal Ulster Constabulary) are themselves
sectarian - responsible for collusion with Protestant terrorists.
Here however, we would benefit from a small glossary of terms to
help us understand exactly what the IRA mean. By "police"
they mean the right to intimidate, beat-up, shoot and generally bully
the residents of areas that are predominately Catholic and to
maintain an iron grip over nationalist communities. This position it
seems, the British government - and to some degree the RUC, have now
accepted.
This then shows us two things: Firstly, the British government has
foolishly decided that the IRA is now a legitimate organisation who
speak for their community. The reality is however that they (and
their political wing Sinn Fein) are a small thuggish group of
criminals who intimidate and murder. IRA/Sinn Fein do not speak for
the Catholic community - but only a small proportion of it. The
electoral mandate of Sinn Fein is small compared to the SDLP and even
the Unionist parties attract some limited support from Catholic
voters in more prosperous areas.
Secondly, the agreement shows us that the British government is
fully prepared to treat Northern Ireland as a "special
case" where the normal rules of Law and Order do not apply. It
is clear, that the British government believe that as long as the IRA
restrict their criminal activities, beatings, knee-capping and
murders to Catholic communities on the Irish side of the sea, the
British Government are happy to judge their cease-fire
"intact".
This means that - whether we like it or not, the British
government still treats Catholics as second class citizens, denying
them the same protection from intimidation and violence that other
British citizens enjoy.
Once again, 30 years after the violence started, it is still the
Catholic community of Northern Ireland that suffer at the hands of a
British government's refusal to protect their civil and legal
rights. Previously, the British Government refused to protect the
Catholic minority from Ulster's Protestant extremists in events
such as the infamous "Bombay Street riots". With their
economic might and their gerrymandered Stormont Parliament, the
Protestant state was guilty of promoting an apartheid and
denying Catholics work, decent housing and even political rights. It
was in ths climate of fear and desperation that the IRA was
resurrected as the "Provisional IRA". Yet, paradoxically,
it is now the IRA that terrorise their own - with the British
Government once again turning a blind eye to the abuses.
It is then this attitude of appeasement that has done more than
anything else to give succour to the murderous republican movement.
By the early 1990s, the IRA was in its death throws and looking for
an "exit strategy" from the war. Yet instead putting the
IRA down, the Governemnts of John Major and Tony Blair have
effectively put them on a ventilator - giving them artificial life
with which they continue to hold the people of Ulster and Eire to
ransom.
My own proposals for the resolution of this problem are completely
different to that proposed by Mr Moore - and is unlike his solution,
one that has never yet been tried before by any British government.
It is indeed radical and revolutionary.
My solution is: treat Northern Ireland exactly the same as any
other part of the United Kingdom, and ensure that the same standards
of law, order and civil equity apply to all citizens in Northern
Ireland as would be applied in the rest of the UK. This means that
Catholics would at last be free from the intimidation of either
Protestant or IRA bullies - and free to work, trade and prosper - and
eventually interact to a greater degree with their Protestant
neighbours.
I would abandon the shameful and disgraceful policy adopted by
John Major when he stated that "Britain has no strategic
interest in the north of Ireland". As a part of the United
Kingdom - we have a huge strategic interest in the north of Ireland.
Perhaps if we directed some of the billions we squander on the
European Union each year and diverted them into useful works of
regeneration in Northern Ireland, the discontent that breeds violence
might be abated.
Finally, in relation to the proposed solution of giving three of
the six counties to the republic and encouraging repatriation for
Catholics to counties west of the Bann, what makes Mr Moore think it
will work second time around?
The whole theoretical basis behind the previous partitioning
of Ireland has proven not to have worked. I cannot see, in an age
when people rightly value their freedom to move and live wherever
they want, how they will tolerate being told where they can or
can't live. The answer to overcoming years of suspicion and
hostility (which leads to isolation) has to be more integration
between the communities - not less! We must remember that Ulster (one
of the four historic provinces of Ireland including Leinster, Munster
and Connaught) still has 3 of its counties in the Republic of Ireland
(Donegal on the west coast and Cavan and Monaghan to the south east).
There is nothing to suggest that extremist nationalists would be any
happier with three counties remaining British than they are with the
present 6 counties remaining British. Further to this, how would
Loyalists respond to such a proposal. They are rightly obsessed with
being "sold out" to Dublin (and who can blame them?) and
such a move is as likely to create more violence amongst the
loyalists than it resolves amongst the nationalists.
I am afraid that the only answer is to accept the current
geographical boundaries of Northern Ireland (as Dublin has since
revoked its claim over the six counties), work for economic
regeneration in deprived areas, encourage cross community interaction
based upon trade (making sure that schools were mixed would help to
challenge phobias the communities currently feel about each other)
and ensure that communities are not terrorised by armed militias, but
policed by the RUC upholding the law of the United Kingdom as a
whole.
Adrian Yalland is married with two children and lives in
Colchester. He is a graduate in Politics from the University of
Essex. and has been influenced by writers such as Burke and Locke and
Mill. He wants to become a Member of Parliament.
The whole theoretical basis behind the previous partitioning
of Ireland has proven not to have worked. I cannot see, in an age
when people rightly value their freedom to move and live wherever
they want, how they will tolerate being told where they can or
can't live. The answer to overcoming years of suspicion and
hostility (which leads to isolation) has to be more integration
between the communities - not less! We must remember that Ulster (one
of the four historic provinces of Ireland including Leinster, Munster
and Connaught) still has 3 of its counties in the Republic of Ireland
(Donegal on the west coast and Cavan and Monaghan to the south east).
There is nothing to suggest that extremist nationalists would be any
happier with three counties remaining British than they are with the
present 6 counties remaining British. Further to this, how would
Loyalists respond to such a proposal. They are rightly obsessed with
being "sold out" to Dublin (and who can blame them?) and
such a move is as likely to create more violence amongst the
loyalists than it resolves amongst the nationalists.