PSNI & MI5 - "Only A Fool" -- Stormont Watch

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Date Posted: Tue, Jan 23 2007, 15:14:58 PST
Author: Anthony McIntyre-The Blanket
Subject: PSNI & MI5 - "Only A Fool"
In reply to: Fionnbarra � Dochartaigh -The Blanket 's message, "McDowell Blocks 'Last' Repatriation" on Tue, Jan 23 2007, 14:21:25 PST

Only A Fool

There was nothing new in last week's written statement from Tony Blair on the future role of MI5 in Northern Ireland. It amounted to no more than a repetition of what is already laid down in the relevant section (annex E) of the St Andrew's Agreement - David Adams

Anthony McIntyre � 19 January 2007

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."

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Replies:

Re: McDowell Blocks 'Last' Repatriation -- IA-PL Newsroom, Wed, Jan 24 2007, 20:32:16 PST