Archive for the ‘Britain’ Category
Piety and Politics of the Democratic Unionist party in the Six County bit of Ireland – with the fall of Sir Jeffrey Donaldson “It feels like the end of days now”
In his final public sighting as DUP leader, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson was at Stormont for a Christian Easter service.
It was Wednesday evening and there was a feel-good sense in Parliament Buildings. The DUP and Sinn Fein had been working together harmoniously for eight weeks, and now politicians were coming together for an uplifting ecumenical concert.
With Donaldson in the audience, prayers were said for political leaders, and at the end the relaxed DUP leader went to have his photo taken with Eurovision winner Dana, who was singing at the event.
Sir Jeffrey Donaldson MP and his wife Eleanor are scheduled to appear in court on April 24 in connection with serious criminal charges (described below). In the next weeks and months we will see how this story unfolds. The context is important – what effect will this have on the the Democratic Unionist party (DUP) which Mr Donaldson led until Good Friday 2024?
In a context where extreme right forces are on the march in most parts of the world, it is useful to add some Irish cross-border detail to Jeffrey Donaldson’s “final public sighting as DUP leader”. Sir Jeffrey was pleased to pose for a photo with Eurovision winner Dana (Rosemary Scallon) who attempted (and failed) to revive the religious far-right in the 26 County bit of Ireland. In the late 1990’s Scallon had some brief electoral success in a Presidential election, and won a European Parliament seat. However by 2011 Scallon’s political green-devil comet crashed and burned. The extremist Catholic far-right had become deeply unpopular. Most people in Ireland had turned against the Catholic Church, deeply implicated in a succession of child abuse scandals and hatred of pro-feminist causes such as the legalisation of abortion , divorce, same-sex marriage, contraception and gay rights. Shrewder right -wing politicians such as Fine Gael Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Enda Kenny saw the writing on the wall ; In the Dáil (parliament) this leader of the Dublin government stated that the Vatican was responsible for the “torture” of Irish children.
Read the rest of this entry »Background to current Donaldson investigation: Terrible track record of 6 County British state institutions dealing with politically sensitive criminal cases
All need to show unconditional solidarity with the two women who came forward in the rape case which led to Sir Jeffrey Donaldson resigning from the leadership of the Democratic Unionist party in the six-county bit of Ireland.
In the Easter Sunday 2024 edition of the Belfast Sunday Life tabloid Lady Eleanor Donaldson is named as the co-defendant in the Jeffrey Donaldson MP rape case. Jeffrey and Eleanor are a married couple.
Two women came forward to the state authorities with allegations categorised as “historical”. In this context, what does the word “historical” mean, precisely? That is a very important question.
Read the rest of this entry »Freddie Scappaticci, a British Agent in the IRA, was publicly unmasked in 2003 – on March 8 2024 the British State publishes a cover-up report called Kenova – the authors refuse to name Scappaticci – and nobody will be prosecuted
Ed Moloney is the first journalist who publicly unmasked Freddie Scappaticci. A strange coalition issued denials : Scappaticci himself, the British Government, and Sinn Féin. Shortly afterwards extraordinary proof emerged, which proved beyond any shadow of doubt that Scappaticci was a British informer.
Questions remain – above all whether the state organisations and the then IRA leadership – responsible for many Scappaticci murders – can be made accountable for their actions. The British state is determined to prevent this happening.
On March 8 2024 a cover-up Kenova Report does not name Scappaticci. In the same week we learned that an innocent civilian called Seán Brown, an active GAA member, was killed in 1997 by loyalists, with help from 25 members of the British state security forces. An inquest into the assassination of Seán Brown was stopped because the British State, covering up its dirty work, issued Public Interest Immunity Certificates.
presiding coroner Mr Justice Kinney abandoned the long-running inquest in Belfast and confirmed he would write to Secretary of State Chris Heaton-Harris to ask for a public inquiry.
He said Mr Brown’s inquest could not continue due to material being withheld by state agencies on the grounds of national security.
The PSNI and MI5 have made applications for multiple redactions to sensitive documents connected to the murder under Public Interest Immunity (PII).
https://tomasoflatharta.com/2024/03/05/surveillance-operation-on-lvf-suspect-mark-swinger-fulton-lifted-the-day-before-sean-brown-murder-irish-news-report-lifts-lid-on-a-1997-sectarian-murder-facilitated-by-the-bri/
The stories below are recommended.
Stakeknife ‘told TV crew that McGuinness ordered killings’
Army mole in IRA allegedly told reporters they had not revealed enough about Sinn Fein leader
Rosie Cowan, Ireland correspondent
Monday July 14, 2003
Guardian
The Army/IRA double agent Freddie “Stakeknife” Scappaticci told television documentary makers Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness was a ruthless terrorist leader who sanctioned murder, secret tapes have allegedly revealed.
Mr Scappaticci was exposed two months ago as military intelligence’s top spy within the Provisionals, for whom he was deputy head of the notorious internal security unit, the Nutting Squad, responsible for torturing and killing suspected informers.
So far, Mr Scappaticci, whom the government paid more than £80,000 a year and whom sources have linked to more than 40 murders, has brazened it out, denying everything and returning to his west Belfast home after his security force handlers failed to persuade him to flee the country for his own safety.
Although many IRA members believe he is Stakeknife, the republican leadership has stuck by him, albeit at a distance, perhaps reckoning that the secret services would capitalise further on any IRA attempt to harm or exile him.
Read the rest of this entry »“Surveillance operation on LVF suspect Mark ‘Swinger’ Fulton lifted the day before Seán Brown murder” – Irish News report lifts lid on a 1997 sectarian murder, facilitated by the British State – “Inquest abandoned due to material being withheld on the grounds of national security as coroner asks for public inquiry”
Twenty seven years ago, and the British State is determined to prevent a true story being told.
Here is the Irish News report, published on March 5 2024.
A security surveillance operation on a leading loyalist and suspect in the murder of GAA official Sean Brown was lifted the night before the killing, a coroner has been told.
Details emerged as presiding coroner Mr Justice Kinney abandoned the long-running inquest in Belfast and confirmed he would write to Secretary of State Chris Heaton-Harris to ask for a public inquiry.
He said Mr Brown’s inquest could not continue due to material being withheld by state agencies on the grounds of national security.
The PSNI and MI5 have made applications for multiple redactions to sensitive documents connected to the murder under Public Interest Immunity (PII).
PII certificates are used by state agencies to withhold sensitive or top level security information they do not want in the public domain.
Last week the coroner heard that more than 25 people had been linked by intelligence to the murder, including several state agents.
Read the rest of this entry »“Frogs’ legs and lobster Thermidor – or the ABC of republican strategy” – Fearghal Mac Bhloscaidh
Fearghal Mac Bhloscaidh is one of the most interesting political writers in Ireland. The article below is a detailed analysis of Ireland’s peace process, which begins with a speech delivered by Bernadette McAliskey the year before the Good Friday Agreement was signed in 1998. I remember it well. (*)
John Meehan
About the author : Fearghal Mac Bhloscaidh is a Belfast-based historian and the author of a number of important books, including Tyrone: the Irish Revolution, 1912-1923 (Four Courts Press, 2014).
As a young man, I listened to a speech by Bernadette McAliskey the year before the signing of the Good Friday Agreement – the pinnacle of what became known as the ‘peace process’. McAliskey did not object to peace, she had notoriously been subtitled by the BBC in a 1992 interview, when she said: ‘No sane human being supports violence. We are often inevitably cornered into it by powerlessness, by lack of democracy, by lack of willingness of people to listen to our problems. We don’t choose political violence, the powerful force it on us.’ (quoted in Curtis, 1998:297) By the time I heard her speak in 1997, the powerful had arrested her pregnant daughter, Róisín, with the intent to extradite her to Germany. By 2000, the powerful admitted that Róisín, who had never been charged, had no case to answer as there was ‘not a realistic prospect of convicting Miss McAliskey for any offence.’ (Guardian, 20 July 2000). What struck me at the time, was that the powerful had a vendetta against a woman and her family because she had stood up for socialist republican principles for thirty years at that stage. Last month, fifty-five years after the Burntollet march and her subsequent election as the then youngest female Westminster MP ever, McAliskey gave the main oration at the solidarity march in Dublin, where she told the crowd that ‘Palestine is the litmus test of our humanity’ and then urged those present not to vote for any politician who would legitimise the Biden administration, which was ‘enabling genocide’, by attending the St Patrick’s Day events in the White House (Irish News, 14 January 2024).
McAliskey’s speech from all those years ago stuck in my mind because in the questions afterwards she was asked about the peace process and used a powerful analogy that I hadn’t heard before at that stage, but I have heard and used myself on numerous occasions since. She welcomed an end to violence but warned that the provisional movement appeared to be going down a well-worn reformist path that would eventually denude it of any revolutionary potential. She compared the republican movement to a frog, which if placed in a pot of boiling water, will immediately sense the danger, and jump out to save itself, but, if immersed in tepid water brought slowly to the boil so that the change in temperature remains gradual, the frog does not realise it’s boiling to death. In line with their – soon to be – new mates in New Labour, Sinn Féin had swallowed TINA – there is no alternative. Plan A – armed struggle has failed, now we try Plan B. In Sinn Fein’s case, this meant the long march through the institutions, acceptance of the principle of consent and parliamentary reformism on the classical constitutional nationalist model. McAliskey had the temerity to ask for a Plan C, which might mean retaining socialist republican principles and challenging the powerful rather than getting into bed with them.
Read the rest of this entry »The Border Partitioning Ireland – Credible opinion polls, Brexit, and Perfidious Albion
A new credible opinion poll in the six county bit of Ireland states the following :
This matters, because under the terms of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement (GFA), if a six county (Northern Ireland) referendum results in a pro United Ireland majority, partition will be dead.
There is no reason to doubt the accuracy of this survey – it is consistent with many other recent opinion polls.
Under the GFA, the NI Secretary of State (currently Chris Heaton-Harris) has the power to call a referendum. This Westminster minister is not obliged to call a referendum unless a series of surveys indicate that a majority of voters in the six county statelet (NI) will vote for a change in the constitutional status.
This was a perfect arrangement for the Dublin and London governments in 1998 – a big majority of the people living in Ireland (on both sides of the border) voted to accept a Unionist Veto. No real prospect of a shift in attitudes seemed possible. But something big happened in 2016 which is having long-term results : Brexit.
Read the rest of this entry »Is Independence the “Settled Will” of the Scottish People in the 2020’s?
Recent political events in England and Wales suggest chaos : Support for Rishi Sunak’s Tories is dive bombing. The excellent Stats for Lefties site regularly updates numbers, and they are startling :
At the same time Keir Starmer’s Labour Party seems to be busting a gut : Is it desperately snatching general election defeat from the jaws of victory? Readers are probably aware of Starmer’s deeply unpopular refusal to oppose Israeli genocide in Palestine. Did Sir Keir Starmer say Israel has the right to cut off food water and electricity to 2 million people in Gaza?
Starmer might be scoring an own-goal in Scotland. This Bella Caledonia article reviews the latest developments. Source : The Settled Will About the Author Mike Small : Mike Small
The Settled Will
How do you understand the latest polling from IPSOS which puts the SNP ahead of Labour by seven points and predicts they would pick up 40 seats in the next General Election?
At the last general election IPSOS predicted the SNP would win 48 seats (and were the most accurate pollster to predict the result). The SNP would indeed later win 48 seats. If the ‘extinction event’ that is predicted for the Conservatives this would mean the SNP taking 70% of available seats in Scotland. If Labour annihilate the Tories in England as looks very likely, there’s a possibility of the SNP becoming the official opposition.
The wider party prediction seat prediction is:
SNP 40
Labour 13
Conservatives 2
Lib Dems 2
Emily Gray from IPSOS Scotland said: “The SNP lead by 7 points on General Election voting intention, but Labour are narrowing the gap. There’s a Rise in public trust in Scottish Labour, including on the NHS and the economy – though SNP still the most trusted party.”
What’s going on?
Read the rest of this entry »Ultra-loyalist blogger Jamie Bryson live-tweeting “secret” DUP meeting
Ultra-loyalist blogger Jamie Bryson is live-tweeting the “secret” DUP
meeting where Sir Jeffrey Donaldson is trying to persuade his party to return to
Stormont.
Could you make it up?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-northern-ireland-politics-68031910
Our friends at the Cedar Lounge Revolution are also enjoying the DUP carnage :
Perhaps this is the best highlight :
Suggested now in meeting turn of electronics; someone mutters “but JD needs it for his power point”. Chaos
Learning to Swim – “an argument against a retreat from broad parties and electoral work” – Paul Murphy TD
Paul Murphy TD (People Before Profit, Dublin South-West) has written an interesting article :
Learning to Swim,;Paul Murphy; December 31 2023
It is published on the ISJ site, a British website :
“International Socialism is associated with the [British] Socialist Workers Party, but articles express the opinions of individual authors unless otherwise stated. We welcome proposals for articles and reviews for International Socialism..”
Paul Murphy is replying to a Joseph Choonara article; link here Revolutionaries and Elections
Here is Paul Murphy’s core argument :
Read the rest of this entry »
Tomás Ó Flatharta 