It’s
generally accepted the Provos and the Paisleyites
don’t trust one another an inch. How could
it be otherwise, given what they represent and after
the last 30 years? Thus the splurge of articles
explaining the need to “build trust” if
any secure deal is to be done.
Strange
that nobody makes much of the untrustworthy nature
of another leading figure at the Leeds Castle talks---Blair
personal envoy, Downing Street chief of staff Jonathan
Powell.
Powell
talking about the need for all sides to renounce
violence is like Dr. Harold Shipman delivering a
lecture on care of the elderly.
On
September 19th 2002, as Blair fine-tuned the lies
he was using to lure Britain into war with Iraq,
Powell became alarmed that the intelligence information
wasn’t helpful. He e-mailed intelligence chief
John Scarlett: “I think the statement on page
19 that ‘Saddam is prepared to use chemical
and biologocal weapons if he believes his regime
is under threat’ is a bit of a problem. It
backs up the argument that there is no CBW (chemical
and biologoical weapons) threat and we will only
create one if we attack him. I think you should
redraft the para.” Which Scarlett duly did.
Powell
was admitting that the truth was the opposite of
the case Blair was making. So he wanted the reverse
of the truth. This is a man plainly willing to lie
to precipitate the misery and death that war inevitably
brings.
What
does it say about those gathered in the leafy luxury
of Leeds Castle that not one is prepared to throw
this fact back in Powell’s teeth? Or even to
make reference to it in interviews or public statements
on progress, if any, in the discussions?
What’s
revealed here is that all the Northern parties accept
that the conflict they are discussing is primarily
between “the two communities.”
If
a memo were unearthed quoting Peter Robinson suggesting
that lies be told to persuade Unionist people of
the case for violence, wouldn’t the Nationalist
parties be shouting their anger on every news bulletin
for a month? As Unionists would if Martin McGuinness
were shown to have engaged in the same sort of manoeuvre.
But
once it’s accepted that the British are, essentially,
standing above and between “the two communities,”
their involvement in violence elsewhere becomes
irrelevant.
It’s
a far cry from the days when Nationalists---“Republicans”
most shrilly of all---would regularly insist that
their conflict was decidedly not with the Unionists
but with Britain. The violence and untrustworthy
character of Britain in other eras and parts of
the world would be cited. Once the perfidious British
were ejected or persuaded to depart, ran the theory,
Unionists and Nationalists could get down to doing
a deal.
The
relevance of the British to a deal with Irish Nationalism
has now been turned on its head. Just a couple of
days before the decampment to Kent, Sinn Fein chairman
Mitchel McLaughlin publicly suggested that if the
talks come to nothing, Britain should form “an
alliance” with Nationalists to reach a settlement
above the Unionists’ heads.
No
essential contradiction, then, between the British
ruling class and the interests represented by Sinn
Fein.
Just
as socialists have been arguing for years.
