Introduction
On 20 October 1999 in the House of Commons, against the background of one of those endless rounds of negotiation that lead nowhere, Peter Mandelson, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, talking about the Peace Process said “There is no Plan B.” As far as he was concerned there was no alternative.
This is of course a nonsense – if the Process breaks down the Government will have to do something. The Process depends on Ulster’s political parties agreeing. And what Ulster’s political parties do is outside the Government’s control – in much the same way as the pound was on Black Wednesday. And just as on Black Wednesday an alternative was found. Saying there is no alternative simply betrays the weakness of your own position. It may be that the Government does not want to come up with a Plan B – it may feel that by doing so it would influence the outcome of negotiations – and it may have a point. But as things drag on failure becomes more likely and the need for an alternative will become ever more apparent.
When that time comes there will be all sorts of proposals put forward. This is mine.
A Note on Nomenclature
I baulk at the phrase “Peace Process” – both words. It implies that this process will bring about peace. Bearing in mind that the IRA is still beating people to death on the streets of Belfast it is about time that that claim was revised downwards.
I think the word “process” should also be dropped. There isn’t one. Over the last four years TV viewers have got used to the sight of the BBC’s Dennis Murray, wrapped up against the elements in his anorak, standing outside Stormont Buildings trying to tell the viewer what is going on in negotiations where precious little ever seems to happen. The reports themselves are almost invariably a combination of unsubstantiated rumour, spin, the phrase of the week and Kremlinology. I am sure it would be perfectly possible for Dennis to dig up some archive footage from 1996 and rebroadcast it without anyone noticing. The truth is that we are at a standstill. An Executive may have been formed, the North-South Council may have met, but there is precious little real process.
So what should it be called? The main feature of the Peace Process is the attempt to include terrorists in an overall settlement. That is why I will refer to the set of negotiations that has been called the “Peace Process” as the “Inclusive Strategy”.
A Brief History of the Inclusive Strategy
In the late 1980s and early 1990s John Hume, Leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) and Gerry Adams, leader of Sinn Fein, held a number of meetings. This led to the writing of what has become known as the Hume-Adams Document. I would love to be able to tell you what is in it but I can’t because it remains a secret. However, both Hume and Adams claimed that it held the key to peace in Ulster.
Shortly afterwards the British Government received a number of messages from the IRA which led it to believe that the IRA wanted to give up and was looking for a way out. This was very attractive to a Government that had long before run out of ideas and was being worn down by the IRA’s mainland bombing campaign.
There then followed a round of negotiations between the British Government, under John Major, and the Irish Government, under Albert Reynolds, which led to the Downing Street Declaration of 15th December 1993. This was largely a statement of principles. The document included the statement that participants in any settlement would have to demonstrate “a commitment to exclusively peaceful means.” In other words the IRA would have to disarm.
On 31 August 1994, the IRA declared a “complete ceasefire”. But what the world wanted to know was whether this was permanent or not. John Hume said it was. Unionists pointed out that if it was permanent then the IRA did not need its weapons and could begin decommissioning them. The IRA claimed that decommissioning would be tantamount to surrender. Decommissioning did not take place.
At the time the British Government took the decommissioning issue very seriously. Although low-level talks were allowed between officials and Sinn Fein leaders, there were no meetings with Government ministers. And there were no round-table talks aimed at finding a permanent solution.
In the absence of talks the two governments, which by this time had decided that they had to act together, negotiated the Framework Documents which were published in February 1995. These were intended to provide a blueprint for an overall settlement but were seen by Unionists as a blueprint for a united Ireland.
Finding themselves with a ceasefire but no talks, the governments decided to ask former US senator George Mitchell to compile a report on how the decommissioning issue should be resolved. In January 1996 the commission reported outlining six principles of non-violence. These bound the participants:
to democratic and exclusively peaceful means of resolving political issues;
to the total disarmament of all paramilitary organisations;
to agree that such disarmament must be verifiable to the satisfaction of an independent commission;
to renounce for themselves, and to oppose any effort by others, to use force, or threaten to use force, to influence the course or the outcome of all-party negotiations;
to agree to abide by the terms of any agreement reached in all-party negotiations and to resort to democratic and exclusively peaceful methods in trying to alter any aspect of that outcome with which they may disagree; and
to urge that “punishment” killings and beatings stop and to take effective steps to prevent such actions
These have become known as the Mitchell Principles. Mitchell also proposed an electoral process.
In February 1996, claiming that unionists had rejected the Mitchell Report, which they hadn’t, the IRA exploded a bomb at South Quay in London’s Docklands. Two men were killed. The ceasefire was over.
Against the background of an IRA mainland bombing campaign (which eventually spread to Ulster) a set of elections were held in Ulster. Their purpose was two-fold. The first was to supply parties for the talks – the ten most popular being allowed to participate. The number ten was chosen for a very specific purpose. The Governments wanted the Loyalist parties – the Ulster Democratic Party and the Progressive Unionist Party – to be included. Unlike Sinn Fein, both parties achieved and continue to achieve derisory numbers of votes in elections. So ten parties had to be included in order to include the Loyalist parties. The second purpose, rather overlooked as it happened, was to provide members for a Forum to discuss Ulster issues.
Talks started in June 1996 at Stormont with Sinn Fein/IRA excluded not only because they were not observing a ceasefire but because the IRA had not started decommissioning. On the day the talks began Messrs Adams and McGuinness memorably peered through the gates of Stormont for all the world to see. The talks themselves went nowhere.
The Forum got started a few weeks later and then more or less immediately came the annual Drumcree parade. After a week of violence the parade was allowed to pass. The SDLP took the opportunity to walk out of the Forum.
In May 1997 Labour came to power with Tony Blair as Prime Minister. He appointed Mo Mowlam as his Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. In July the IRA declared a second ceasefire.
A new talks process was convened in September 1997. This time, without any decommissioning or any commitment to it, Sinn Fein were allowed in. The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and United Kingdom Unionist Party (UKUP) walked out. Significantly, the Ulster Unionists under David Trimble remained in the talks although they did not talk face-to-face with Sinn Fein.
Although these new talks included Sinn Fein they seemed to be getting no further than the previous round. In early 1998 the Governments decided to impose a deadline. Either there would be an agreement by the Thursday before Easter or the whole thing would be scrapped. On Good Friday a document was produced. All the parties present at the talks except Sinn Fein accepted it. Sinn Fein later advised their supporters to vote for it.
The main features of the Good Friday Agreement were:
The setting up of a power-sharing Executive
Prisoner releases: prisoners imprisoned for terrorist offences and members of organisations on a ceasefire were to be released
The setting up of cross-border bodies
An agreement that should Ulster ever vote to join the Republic the UK would make sure that it happened: there could be no further partition.
The setting up of a commission into policing
Decommissioning of Army bases
A change to the Irish Republic’s constitution to remove the territorial claim
No explicit commitment from the IRA to decommissioning
The deal was put to a referendum in Ulster and approved by 71% of the population. Although we cannot be sure how people voted, it seems that nationalists voted overwhelmingly and unionists narrowly for the agreement. Most unionist MPs voted against it. A similar referendum was held in the Republic securing a 92% “Yes” vote. John Hume and David Trimble were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their roles.
It is easy to forget the euphoria that surrounded the Good Friday Agreement. People made all sorts of claims that this represented a new era of co-operation and peace which was strange because the IRA had not budged one inch.
In July 1998, the annual Orange parade at Drumcree was banned by the Parades Commission. In the absence of leadership from unionist politicians the protest fell into the hands of paramilitaries. After three Catholic boys were killed in an arson attack in Ballymoney the protest disintegrated.
The result of the referendum and Drumcree did not, however, please everyone even on the Republican side. An organisation calling itself the Real IRA exploded a bomb in Omagh town centre in August 1998. The death toll was thirty – the highest for any single atrocity during the course of the Troubles.
Although the Executive was supposed to have been set up, it was held up on the issue of decommissioning. The unionists would not sit down with Sinn Fein until the IRA had begun the process of decommissioning. Frustrated by this lack of progress the Government set yet another deadline for July 1999. This time there was no agreement. The Government put forward a proposal in which the Executive would start with decommissioning to follow. The unionists had had enough of making concessions and refused to form an Executive. The “Process” was yet again stalled.
While this was happening the Patten Commission on the RUC was still compiling its report. In July it reported its recommendations:
Changing the name of the force to the Northern Ireland Police Service
Replacement of the badge with something more “inclusive” – which was funny seeing that the old one contained both a harp and a shamrock
An end to the flying of the Union Jack from police stations
Quotas for the recruitment of Catholics into the police force
Merger of Special Branch with CID
Establishment of local police boards with the ability to buy in policing services on a local basis – possibly from paramilitaries
Unionists saw these proposals as tantamount to the destruction of the RUC.
In August 1999, the Government asked George Mitchell to conduct a review of the process. In the end what he came up with was more or less identical to the plan that the Ulster Unionists had rejected in July. This time they accepted it, but with a proviso that they would review the situation in February 2000.
Why the Inclusive Strategy is going to fail
Why it started
The Inclusive Strategy did not come into being by magic. Before 1992 there were forces in place which were changing the outlook of the participants.
The most important of these was that before the first ceasefire the IRA was weak. After thirty years of bombing and shooting it still had not achieved its goal of a united Ireland. It was being squeezed as the Army and RUC closed in on its members. Of course, it was still capable of mounting “spectaculars” but the general outlook was one of gradual decline. Things were so bad that Gerry Adams had even lost his Westminster seat.
Another factor is that the attractions of Irish nationalism have diminished over the years. At the beginning of this century nationalists believed that they would be able to create a glittering, prosperous independent state based on the re-discovery of their Gaelic heritage, the primacy of the Catholic Church and self-sufficiency.
It didn’t happen. It wasn’t for lack of trying, but by the 1960s the Republic of Ireland had become an economic joke. Since then the founding principles of the Republic have been honoured more in the breach than the observance. The primacy of the Catholic Church was removed from the constitution followed by the removal of the ban on divorce. Gaelic, although the official language, has never really taken off and its long-term prospects are grim. Economically, trade barriers have been lifted and although the myth of the Celtic Tiger is just that, the Republic’s economy is closing the gap with the UK. Membership of the European Union has led to ever more decisions being made in Brussels.
The Irish like to think they have become more European. While it might be cruel to suggest that in fact they have become more British, the truth remains that the Republic is a very different country from the backward Emerald Isle of legend. What this means is that a united Ireland is unlikely to be much different from a partitioned one. And the Republicans know it.
Most significant of all was the IRA’s acceptance of the Patten Commission’s proposals on local policing. This may seem an odd thing to say, given that the Patten Commission largely followed a Republican agenda. The point, however, is that if IRA men are to be issued weapons and become policemen, then the same will apply to Loyalists. A well-armed Loyalist movement which can defend itself if attacked makes a united Ireland impossible without consent. And that simply isn’t going to happen
The Decommissioning Issue
All talks which have been undertaken as part of the Inclusive Strategy have become bogged down. This has been going on for over five years and it is always the same stumbling block: decommissioning.
Outsiders, government and journalists would like us to believe that decommissioning is an issue like any other that could be resolved with just a little good will. Rubbish. Decommissioning is The Issue. It is the only issue. Everything else is window dressing. Democracy means that it is the ballot box that decides and nothing else. Democracy and armed militias are incompatible. The whole point about democracy is that you remove violence and the threat of it from the political process.
Incompatible Positions
The IRA refuse to accept any partitioning of Ireland. To them it doesn’t matter what the people of Northern Ireland think – Ireland is one nation. This is a fascist position. Unionists believe that they have the right to secede from Ireland where they are in the majority. This is a democratic position. The two cannot be reconciled. Neither side has budged one inch from these positions. It is not surprising, therefore, that they therefore cannot come to an agreement. At the end of the day the democratic position and the fascist position are incompatible. One of them must prevail.
And so far it isn’t democracy. The truth is that despite all the talk of “seismic shifts” the IRA has done nothing inconsistent with declaring a tactical ceasefire in order to gain concessions, and then returning to violence as soon as the concessions have run out.
Comparisons with other conflicts
Many find it difficult to understand why peace processes in South Africa and the Middle East have been successful while the one in Ulster seems to be permanently bogged down. The difference is that the South African and Middle East processes were moving towards democracy and self-determination. Ulster’s borders, on the other hand, were drawn up with regard to self-determination and it has always been governed along democratic lines. Ulster can only move away from those ideals. Not surprisingly many there are reluctant to do so.
It is also worth remembering that there are plenty of other conflicts that have not been resolved. In Cyprus, the Greeks do not accept that the Turkish half has the right to self-determination. In Sri Lanka, the Government does not accept the Tamil right to self-determination. The same is true in Kashmir and Tibet. When the IRA and other nationalists accept that Ulstermen do have a right to self-determination then things may change – but not before.
Power Sharing
I said earlier that in adopting the Inclusive Strategy Ulster was moving away from democracy. In a democracy, the party or parties with the greatest number of votes or seats gains power. The Good Friday Agreement’s setup means that a government can only be established if it includes representatives from both unionist and nationalist parties. It is difficult enough to create deals between normally opposed political parties, so what chance is there of a deal between two that cannot even agree which state they should be part of?
Power sharing is nonsense – a nonsense widely accepted even in unionist circles – but still a nonsense. It is a House of Cards. And the Good Friday Agreement is even worse in attempting, as it does, to build one House of Cards (power sharing) on top of another (the inclusion of terrorists). The only two occasions I can think of when power sharing was tried was in Lebanon and Cyprus – not exactly rip-roaring successes either of them.
Corrosion of Government Will
One feature of the Inclusive Strategy worth highlighting is the corrosion of the Government’s will. At first the Government said that it would never talk to terrorists until decommissioning had taken place. Nowadays Government ministers sit down with members of Sinn Fein on an almost daily basis. Similar backsliding has taken place with the banning of parades and the dismantling of border posts and the scaling down of counter-terrorist operations. It should be remembered that although the IRA may not currently be killing members of the security forces they are still be preparing to do so, not least by acquiring weapons. Such activities still count as terrorism.
Here is a list of concessions made by the Government:
Talking to terrorists
Scaling back anti-terrorist operations
Including terrorists in constitutional talks without decommissioning
Releasing terrorist prisoners
The establishment of cross-border bodies
Here is a list of Ulster Unionist concessions:
Talking to Sinn Fein/IRA
Appearing on TV with members of Sinn Fein/IRA
Agreeing to the release of terrorist prisoners, etcetera
In return the IRA has conceded nothing. People often think that the IRA has accepted partition and even signed up to the Good Friday Agreement. But they were very careful not to. What they did was advise people to vote “Yes” in the referendum. That is not the same thing.
This whole story has been a bit like Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby or some pyramid selling scheme with the Government as the sucker. The decommissioning carrot has continually been dangled in front of the Government and just like the donkey the Government has continued to move in the IRA’s direction without ever getting hold of the prize. This corrosion of will has led to a collapse in unionist confidence in the Government.
Wrong Ideas
Throughout this process and especially since Labour took power, Government thinking has been dogged by a number of wrong-headed beliefs.
One of these is that if you are nice to terrorists then they will be nice back. What actually happens is that you end up rewarding violence. When you do that, you simply end up with more of the same.
Another is that the Irish Government is an ally. The Government is desperate that the two governments should act together. This leads to a badly unbalanced process. Why? Because the Irish Government and the SDLP differ on almost nothing and both are close to Sinn Fein/IRA. No such closeness exists between British Governments, who would be quite happy to be shot of the province, and unionists who wouldn’t.
The Alternative
So if the Inclusive Strategy is not the answer, then what is? There are two basic options: staying or going. Let’s start with the latter.
Withdrawal is not an option
Britain cannot get out of Ulster. It would mean denying the choice of the people and splitting the nation. It would mean giving in to terrorism. It would also lead to a highly unstable situation in Ulster itself. Much as British politicians would like to deny it, the fact remains that they are in charge and Ulster is their responsibility. That gives them not only the right but the duty to act.
Win the War
The alternative to withdrawal is to resume the war and win it. I said war. We often kid ourselves that the Troubles are something different. Our soldiers are getting killed, our citizens are in peril, our territory is under threat, the enemy calls himself an army. By any normal definition of the term it is a war. The key to victory is to keep going until the IRA has either stopped, started to decommission or accepted the principle of self-determination.
Winning a war against an enemy that exists in the shadows is difficult but not impossible. It is more difficult than it would have been before the ceasefires – with the reduction in anti-terrorist surveillance and the repeal of useful anti-terrorist legislation like internment. It will be difficult but not impossible.
In talking about the sort of measures that are necessary I don’t want to be too prescriptive as I am not a security expert. Some measures, however, seem well worth considering. In my previous pamphlet Ulster for Beginners I pointed out that the IRA has been defeated in Ulster three times in the course of the twentieth century. Each time the principal security measures were internment and vigorous patrolling of the border by locally-raised units, i.e. the B Specials. Even these measures may not be necessary – before the ceasefires existing security policy was already squeezing the IRA.
Next time, as well as implementing the above measures, it might well be worth considering redrawing the border. The West Bank of the Foyle and South Armagh are overwhelmingly nationalist. Support for British rule is minimal. Allowing them to leave might well make the security situation a lot easier.
We should also be prepared to play to our strengths and to use any and all advantages that we possess. For instance, a lot of terrorism originates south of the border. But the Republic of Ireland is highly dependent on the UK. A third of its exports are to the UK, a large proportion of its emigrants go there and we shouldn’t forget that Irish citizens living in the UK are entitled to British Social Security payments. Should the Government feel that the Republic of Ireland was proving insufficiently co-operative it should be reminded that it is the British Government that holds all the cards.
In all this we should remember that of all the players, the British Government is by far the most powerful. The Army and other security forces are massively more powerful than the IRA and its splinter groups. Britain is far richer and more populous than the Republic. It also has democracy on its side.
Forget power-sharing
Having committed yourself to winning the war, you have to have a political strategy. Power-sharing is a nonsense. It isn’t going to happen and even if it did it wouldn’t last. Practise what you preach. If the Government believes that the people of Kosovo are entitled to human rights and democracy then the same goes for Ulster. This can either mean governing Ulster in exactly the same way as England or, in this age of devolution, devolving power on the same grounds as power is devolved to Scotland or Wales. The Government does not want for choice.
Stand up to terrorism
Finally, British Governments have to realise that the alternative to capitulating to terrorism is standing up to it. That means ditching the Patten Report, interning those prisoners you have released and abolishing the Parades Commission. The Government must also make it clear that there will be no concessions to nationalists while republican violence or the threat of it persists. Only that way will it become clear to all that Ulster will only be governed on democratic lines.
The Will to Win
There is one final point to be made. No strategy can hope to succeed without the will to see it through. British Governments have, over the years, only too often ditched potentially successful policies as soon as they have run into difficulty.
There are reasons for this. Ulster is a nightmare. Its economy is a mess, it is expensive to maintain, its problems are intractable, it is far away, it is cold and wet, and it doesn’t even look nice on a map. Anyway, the demographics are all nationalist. It is not an attractive place to govern and it has little strategic significance. Politicians ask themselves, not unreasonably, why bother?
Any lasting alternative is going to have to address these issues. There is not much that can be done to change Ulster’s location or its climate but there is plenty that can be done to make it worth hanging on to.
First, change the demographics. Every year thousands of people attempt to emigrate to the United Kingdom and are prevented from doing so by Britain’s strict immigration laws. Let them emigrate to Ulster. Ulster may seem an impoverished and war-torn place to an Englishmen but many millions would marvel at its wealth and relative tranquility. Permitting up to a million people to emigrate to Ulster would alter the demographic balance decisively.
Secondly, allow Ulster to boom. It is not as if we don’t know how it is done. Hong Kong was governed by the UK for ninety-nine years. After ninety-nine years of the English legal system, low regulation, low taxes and governmental neglect Hong Kong had emerged as one of the richest places on earth. Do the same for Ulster. Slash taxes, regulation and government spending and Ulster could boom. Of course, the IRA will try to stop this and there will be those who will be put off, but as soon as Ulster starts to succeed this will quickly be forgotten. Cut the state benefits that allow the average terrorist to spend his days polishing Kalashnikovs and who knows, even hardened terrorists may find work and be co-opted into Ulster’s recovery.