A
fool and his money are easily parted. A knave
alone would put his earnings on the veracity of
the claim that MI5 is not to be involved in civic
policing which will be carried out exclusively,
we are told, by the PSNI. Think about it. The
greatest liar in modern British political history
tells the greatest liar in modern Irish political
history, "policing is the responsibility
solely of the PSNI. The security service will
have no role whatsoever in civic policing."
What seriously are the chances of the Blair-Adams
combination producing something totally alien
to the two components that make it up? What odds
would you get with a bookie for it? The same probably
as you would find were you to place your money
on the result of two dogs mating being the birth
of a cat.
Yet
such a claim is to be pedalled to the Sinn Fein
grass roots so that those who compose it can get
over any reservations they might harbour towards
supporting the PSNI. Gerry Kelly tried pulling
this one on them: the police will now be protected
from the "malign and corruptive control of
MI5… if they act illegally then we have a
PSNI which is not signed up to MI5 and which will
hold them to account."
To
rub salt in the wounds the guarantor of the Adams-Blair
arrangement is an arch opponent of civil liberties,
Lord Carlile, who supports both Diplock Courts
and 90-day detention. He, we are asked to believe,
shall scrutinise the role of MI5 and hold it to
account. James Connolly's appropriate and prophetic
words flood the mind - "ruling by fooling
is a great British art with great Irish fools
to practice on."
Blair
and Adams have sought to hoodwink both the Provisional
constituency and the wider nationalist community
by blurring the issue. It is not MI5's role in
civic policing which is the subject of dispute
but the PSNI's role in political policing. No
one ever seriously thought that MI5 would be sent
to Ireland to pursue people who annoy their neighbours,
don't pay car tax or do the double. But the PSNI
will most definitely arrest those who extra-legally
protest against water charges, as well as republicans
who sadly learned from Sinn Fein leaders that
violence is a productive form of opposition to
the British state.
Moreover,
Blair, when pressed, tellingly refused to rule
out MI5 involvement in tackling any Provisional
Movement activity, or that of Sinn Fein's various
republican opponents. Neither did he offer assurances,
nor was he asked for any, that both the PSNI and
MI5 have pulled all their informers out of Sinn
Fein.
In
order for Sinn Fein to maintain the sleight of
hand it will have to agree with the British that
the type of activity Sinn Fein leaders previously
ordered young men and women to carry out will
now be criminalised so that it may fall under
the remit of civic policing. Activities Sinn Fein
previously demanded should be rewarded with political
status will now have to be termed criminal in
order to maintain the fiction of the PSNI as a
service engaged exclusively in civic policing.
It is happening already as with the Sinn Fein
call for the Provisionals involved in the Bobby
Tohill incident to hand themselves over to the
courts.
Gerry
Kelly's wretched handling of the MI5 issue has
invited much ridicule from a wide range of people
on the streets, journalists and politicians. During
the week a friend and shrewd observer of events
e mailed me and commented, "that fool Kelly
said on TV this week that if MI5 did anything
wrong the PSNI now will be able to investigate
them." Another veteran republican said, "can
you believe the nonsense that spews out of him?
The stupidest man in the world is wiser than that
fool."
Gerry
Kelly has probably been called many things in
his life but a fool was never one of them. A number
of years ago it was inconceivable that the word
'fool' would have found any space in the lexicon
of his critics. Today, however, the frequency
of his bizarre public commentary, encapsulated
in the exuberant welcome he extended to the Great
Liar of London's MI5 statement has ensured that
his intellectual credibility is being called into
question on a daily basis: "we want MI5 out
of Ireland; there's no place for it north or south.
This gets us a very major step closer to that."
For those who know him it is hard to reconcile
the intellectually adept, straight-talking Kelly
of the prisons with the inchoate dissembler of
today.
Gerry
Kelly, throughout the time that I remained friendly
with him, was a perceptive and highly intelligent
man. Those hoping to win the point against him
were wasting their time if they came ill prepared.
As well read as he was well versed, Kelly was
a formidable adversary in any political or strategic
discussion. He can hardly have lost that intellect.
He has, however, allowed it to slip into abeyance
in deference to the meaningless platitudes of
the peace process. This became apparent to me
in the spring of 1998 when at a Sinn Fein briefing
session he ventured the opinion that the Good
Friday Agreement, while not a transition to united
Ireland , was a transition to a transition. It
was one of my last Sinn Fein meetings.
It
is because Gerry Kelly is judicious rather than
foolish that it sticks in the craw of many that
Ian Paisley jnr has somehow managed to package
himself as a cerebral colossus compared to him.
Paisley jnr is much more credible when he asserts
that Kelly's party had been "sold a pup";
that Blair's words amounted to "a re-statement
of the fundamentals set out in Annex E of the
St Andrews Agreement". Mark Durkan of the
SDLP complemented this, claiming that British
minister Paul Goggins "confirmed that MI5
are taking over intelligence policing. He confirmed
that it will include domestic terrorism. He confirmed
that Nuala O'Loan will not be able to investigate
MI5." It is embarrassingly all up in the
air when the DUP and the SDLP are telling Sinn
Fein members the truth and their own leaders are
lying to them.
What really decided the issue for Sinn Fein was
an agency but not the spook ensemble the party
would have us believe. Borrowing from Tom
Luby's wonderful analogy, in what would seem
to be yet another side deal between Napoleon Adams
and Pilkington Blair, agreement was reached to
scrap the Assets Recovery Agency. One paper has
reported that this was a move to mollify South
Armagh Provisionals. Perhaps, but observers don't
have to travel to the hills of South Armagh to
see Provisional prosperity. The 'greatest negotiators
ever' have ceded all the hard won political ground
to MI5 in return for the men of property being
allowed to proclaim "what we have we hold."
In return the men of property will take their
place on platforms throughout the North in the
coming days to urge support for the leadership's
endorsement of the PSNI. Hypocrisy, as the poet
John Milton wrote, is "the only evil that
walks invisible."
