Recent events suggest we may be approaching a new phase in Irish politics. Whether we are or not depends largely on whether the London administration will now curb its Irish supporters.
All during the past forty years they pleaded that they could not fight on two fronts at once and so they could not deal with the violence of their supporters. Now that the republican military offensive is over, they have that chance. Whether they will now curb their followers and their violence remains to be seen, and we shall all be watching with great curiosity to see .
We shall be watching with curiosity but not with firm hope because London has not honoured any of its promises so far. In the nineteen twenties the Government of Ireland Act promised reasonable government and the creation of all Ireland cooperation which could lead to unity . Having put this into a basic law it proceeded to create a political unit in which good government – and even change of party in government – was impossible. With all the evils that required to sustain it.
In face of mounting international criticism London made declarations of intent which were known as the Downing Street Declarations. These promised change and better government. These did not happen.
In face of such refusal to grant even efficient government let alone fair government, a revolutionary war started and went on for about thirty years. It was a war which republicans and nationalists did not want. But it was made inevitable by bad government and the refusal to change it. Minimal changes proposed by the London administration and forced on a reluctant unionist population were patronising, insufficient and delivered with an arrogance which ensured that they would not be taken seriously by those who should have carried them out.
Other promises were made by London administrations and ruined by the actions of its own agents, like the 1974 arrangement which was ruined by a combination of British secret agents, army, police, media and others using the local loyalists as a front.
The most recent agreement, the Good Friday Agreement or the Belfast Agreement, was yet another example of an agreement entered into in good faith by most Irish people but with no inbuilt means of ensuring that the London administration would carry out its promises. Instead of fulfilling promises the London administration created – and suggested to its Irish supporters – one device after another to delay implementation. There had to be definitions of ceasefires, there had to be clarifications, there had to be talks about talks, indirect talks before real talks , there had to be – and this was the most effective of their delaying tactics – decommissioning of weapons.
All these tactics were designed to delay implementation, not to ensure peace. And all through this charade promises were not kept. Government was still inefficient, unfair and helping to undo whatever progress was made in democratic rule for more than a hundred years.
There would be no more assurance of fair trial without unreasonable delay, the right to silence gone, the right to trial by jury gone, the right to security in the home gone, the right to hold property undisturbed gone, the right to efficient policing gone, the right to have a part in forming domestic policy and foreign policy, education, economic, military policy, not taken away because it was never granted, the right to have voters' election choices honoured by a place in government or even a place in council, gone, the right of people to select, vote for and have honoured the political group of their choice, gone.
One great significance of what has happened in Ireland during the past few days is that the London administration now has the chance to do what it said it could not do because of the republican armed campaign – discipline its Irish supporters. So, very well, it said it could not do so because it could not fight on two fronts at once. It chose to defeat the republicans and failed. Now the republicans have stepped aside from attacks on government, so the field is open for what the London administration always said it wanted to do but could not do: discipline its Irish supporters. Will it do so ?
That depends on whether London has the integrity to do it. It has not. Or alternatively on whether it recognises that it is in its own interests to do it. It may. It also depends on whether the Dublin administration has the integrity to insist on it. It has not. Or alternatively whether it recognises that it is in its own interests to insist on it. It may.
People who have watched the process through the years will recognise that the administration in Dublin would be satisfied with the northeast being ruled from London with a promise – not a reality, but a promise – of fair government and an acceptable level of British violence.
And that London wants stability for Ireland's northeast, not necessarily good government.
One can hope that a political process will now move forward in which the final removal of London control of Ireland's affairs will take place, along with the removal of the London-inspired violence which has damaged Ireland's interests, and even its own, for many sad centuries.
