This
was an attempt by the two Governments to present
the abolition of Articles 2 and 3 of the Irish
Constitution as a quid pro quo for the removal
of the Government of Ireland Act 1920 (known to
Irish people as the 'Partition Cut') from the
Statute Book. This was a classic case of political
deception on the part of Westminster and Leinster
House, as it is a basic political and historical
fact that, in relation to the partition of Ireland,
the 1920 Government of Ireland Act had already
been made redundant by subsequent legislation
which superimposed it, viz. the 1949 (Ireland)
Act, the 1973 Sunningdale Agreement and the 1985
Anglo-Irish Agreement.
Under
the terms of the Government of Ireland Act, it
was possible that the constitutional position
of the Six Counties could have been changed by
legislation at Westminster. The 1949 (Ireland)
Act, however, stated that the constitutional position
of Northern Ireland (sic). could not be changed
without the consent of the majority of the population
of Northern Ireland (sic). This in effect was
the constitutional embodiment of the Unionist
veto. This Act was endorsed by the 1973 Act and
further amended by the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement
in which for the first time the Dublin Government
accepted the legitimacy of partition. The manner
in which the Dublin Government, opposition parties
and the Northern Nationalist parties, who supported
The Belfast Agreement, presented the deletion
of Articles 2 and 3 as a quid pro quo for the
removal of the Government of Ireland Act of 1920,
was nothing less than a confidence trick.
This
represents the basis for British governance in
Ireland and it mirrors the basis upon which the
British government will approach the issue of
policing.
British Policing In Ireland
Conflict
When
the British government imposed partition across
the sovereign territory of the Irish people they
ensured that its border would be policed along
both sides of it. National policing was not only
denied to the Irish people but two British surrogate
police forces were established to prevent its
realisation. And although the Irish dimension
of these surrogate forces was widely flagged their
formative origins were by a British hand. Partition
remains the principle obstacle to the formation
of accountable policing on the island of Ireland.
The present psychology and political inclination
of both these forces is testimony to this fact.
One
of the primary functions of a Police force is
the security of the state in whose name it derives
its right to exist. The primary purpose of British
policing in Ireland is to secure British interests
in Ireland by being exempt from democratic accountability
to the Irish people. British policing in Ireland
is indicative of its criminal justice system in
Ireland, a system which would be anathema to the
peoples of its own island. British policing in
Ireland is the political policing of all aspects
of British Parliamentary activity in Ireland.
This is an anathema to all republicans and democrats.
British policing in Ireland is beyond reform either
from within or without.
The
politics of the Anglo-Irish conflict are incapable
of resolving the conflict. British politics in
Ireland, Civil War politics, Sectarian politics,
as the ascendant powers, have all demonstrated
a perennial inability to secure peace and democracy
for the Irish people. The RUC/PSNI and An Garda
Siochana are the police forces of this failed
politics. Their political instinct is to approach
conflict resolution with a security agenda. British
efforts to portray the conflict as an issue of
law and order found a largely compliant audience
in successive twenty six county political and
legal establishments. Internment, repressive legislation,
juryless courts, informers, shoot to kill, English
hangman are the modus operandi of British policing
in Ireland.
The
politics of partition is ingrained with denial
and exclusion. The Criminal Justice System which
it has spawned is so divorced from the concept
of basic justice that it is matched only by the
political iniquities of the constitutional arrangement
in whose name it operates. It requires bad law
to sustain it. It is a circular process for self
preservation. What is being proposed now in the
context of Policing and the Good Friday Agreement
is for constitutional nationalists and former
separatists to become part of this invidious process,
not just through membership of its agencies, but
by practicing the kind of politics that brought
it into existence. Seeking meaningless reforms
to aspects of this failed system in return for
recognising legitimacy of the constitutional arrangement
which enacts it completely conforms to its ethos.
It is political policing at its worst.
Strategically
Invalid
There
are numerous strategies at play in the St Andrews
Agreement on the policing issue but the principle
strategy, that of the British government, has
already prevailed. The policing of the six counties
is a regional issue for the British Parliament
and it has conducted talks with regional representatives
as how best to move forward on this issue. Pronouncements
of demands and intentions to secure regional control
over policing and to make all aspects of policing
accountable to a regional assembly are immediately
negated by the acceptance of regional status itself.
By default Westminster is the National Parliament
charged with the running of national matters.
Notions of removing the influence of the British
Security Services from policing in the six counties
fails to understand that policing national borders
is a matter for the National Parliament. This
is a function of British Policing in Ireland regardless
of any green hue regional politicians may wish
to claim kudos for. British Security Services,
if they are answerable to anyone, are answerable
to the British Cabinet and not some regional committee.
The
32 County Sovereignty Movement submit that British
policing in Ireland is unacceptable in any guise
because its fundamental purpose is to secure British
interests here. The inherent sectarian nature
of this policing is beyond reform save for fundamental
change to the constitutional status that it defends.
Neither community is served by this policing because
that is not its function. It is a regional surrogate
of the British Security Services presently endeavouring
to secure the support of those who once opposed
it to counteract those who still do. It is a tool
of British Parliamentary activity in Ireland.
Policing
Now
The
extent to which successive British governments
have utilised military and political counter insurgency
tactics in the six counties classifies the area
as a war zone. That the issue of Irish national
sovereignty was the principle issue upon which
the British government refused to engage on in
the so called conflict resolution process demonstrates
that the root cause of that war remains. There
exists an Anglo-Irish conflict and the British
government's status within that conflict is one
of an occupying power. In its role as an occupying
power successive British governments have utilised
and manipulated local policing to underpin and
secure its occupation. That the British government
refuses to concede to this status demonstrates
its continued unsuitability to be the arbiters
of policing in the occupied area.
As
stated earlier the British declaration of 'having
no selfish, strategic or economic reasons to remain
in Ireland' was widely welcomed and interpreted
as a declaration of British neutrality concerning
the conflict in Ireland. It was this seemingly
'new departure' which prompted some republican
spokespersons to announce that 'business' could
be done on this basis. Regardless of what 'business'
had already been conducted in private it was this
declaration which initiated a more public approach
to the political process which culminated in the
signing of the Good Friday Agreement. The 32CSM
reject this interpretation of the British declaration.
Recognising
the true status of the British government in Ireland
is a prerequisite to addressing the policing issue,
not just as it pertains in the overall conflict,
but on the day to day needs of a society which
demands impartial policing. Politically the British
government must be engaged with a view to securing,
as an interim arrangement pending a resolution
of the conflict, impartial policing and the operating
of an equitable criminal justice system. In our
attempts to engage the British on it's declared
and self promoted neutral status the 32CSM drafted
a submission addressed to the British government
as part of our wider political engagement with
our initiative Irish Democracy, A Framework For
Unity. Entitled Irish Sovereignty & British
Politics in Ireland we challenged the British
government to act on its declared neutrality.
As
details and the format of the secret contacts
between republican representatives and British
officials emerged the most notable public utterance
from those concerned came from the then British
Direct ruler in Ireland Peter Brooke in which
he declared that; "The British government
has no selfish, strategic or economic reasons
for remaining in Northern Ireland." (sic)
It
was, to all intents and purposes, an attempt by
the British government to declare itself neutral
regarding its presence in Ireland and the conflict
thereof. The 32CSM reject this declaration on
the following grounds;
