Theresa May has serious Tory leadership ambitions which were germinating long before Cameron intimated that this would be his final term as PM. Some saw the announcement as a clearing of the way for Boris and a shackle method of the London Mayor for the next few years. However, the Home Secretary is nursing her own agenda which has seen her take on the Police Federation, lay out plans to abandon the Human Rights Act and decline support British for migrant settlement. Actions, all judged to appeal to party members and increase her profile as a tough leader. She has also announced plans to place universities under a statutory duty to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism. In effect, universities would have to refer to Government guidance when considering whom they permit to speak on campus. ‘Je suis Charlie, how are you?
In the sixties, I spoke in several British universities on behalf of the Civil Rights Association. The Minister of Home Affairs in Northern Ireland, Bill Craig, regularly denounced us as a Republican front for the IRA. At Oxford, I shared a platform with Gerry Fitt, the Republican Labour MP for West Belfast. In Stirling, my hosts sandwiched me between Tariq Ali and Enoch Powell; the latter would certainly fall foul of the law today , if he were to repeat his 1968 Birmingham speech. However, if Craig had had his way, Fitt and I should not have been given the opportunity to present our views on what passed for political thinking in Northern Ireland.
Theresa May would like to see the introduction of pre-broadcasting banning orders; the catalyst for this was a BBC Newsnight interview with the radical Islamist, Anjem Choudry, which ignited the Tory Right as it occurred in the aftermath of the murder of Drummer Rigby. She would like to make Ofcom take on a censorship role in addition to its regulatory duties. Some of you will remember the farcical eighties when actors read the spoken words in broadcast interviews with Republicans This was the media interpretation of Thatcher’s ‘oxygen of publicity’ strategy which caused a journalists’ strike and the eventual sacking of the Director General, Alisdair Milne. Thatcher’s policy was seen to be clearly redundant in 1982 when Sinn Fein got 35% of the nationalist vote and 5 seats in the poll for ‘rolling devolution’ under Jim Prior. A year later in the Westminster elections, its share had increased to 45% and Gerry Adams took the West Belfast seat. The results stunned not just the British media but the Irish as well; special category status was phased out, internment ended and the courts overflowed.
Conor Cruise O’Brien amended the Broadcasting Act to prevent interviews with persons, identified as Republicans, in any circumstances; he even tried to extend the measure to the Press but, following opposition from the public, he was forced to withdraw. O’ Brien’s antics provoked utter ridicule when it encroached on an industrial dispute in a bakery. The trade union spokesman, Larry O’Toole, was a member of Sinn Fein and so under the new broadcasting edict, he could not be interviewed on air. In an appeal to the High Court, O’Toole won. Surprisingly, although Conor Cruise was the arch revisionist of Irish history, his belief that politically Ireland consisted only of nationalists and unionists and that they were deserving of equal respect, is now the guiding philosophy of both the Irish Government and the Opposition. In the heady days after the Battle of the Bogside, Conor Cruise came to Derry; a joyous, abiding memory for many is Paddy ‘Bogside’ Derry ordering him to leave his home and the City.
Theresa May should learn from recent history.
Really good news
Connor Cruise tried to introduce censorship and control of the media as was the norm in British programming.
“…and in Northern Ireland tonight, a soldier was shot by terrorists, and a young girl died after an incident involving a plastic bullet…” (Glasgow University Media Group 1982:142)
We know that the ‘authorities’ tampered with forensic evidence which was subsequently used in court proceedings. We know that Republicans and disloyalists were blamed for murders carried out by the Military Reaction Force in what passed for a democracy on this part of the island.
Theresa may or may not become leader of the Tory party. She ought, however, learn some lessons from the Thatcher era. Thatcher used the might of the state to attack the trades unions with the Industrial Relations Act. She won a battle but not the war. Tory policies then and now continue to create division and discord.
The good news is that the Tories do not have an electoral mandate in the north of Ireland or Scotland.
Tories always claimed that they were in favour of less government intervention in people’s lives, but this rant by Theresa May clearly shows that they want total control of every aspect of people’s lives.
She will tell us what is good for us, tell us who we should be allowed to listen to, tell us how and what to think, and tell us who we should be protected from.
I am old enough to have seen the film 1984 first time around and thought that, while scary, it was only fiction.
Now it seems that this old bat out of hell saw it also and believed every word of it.
We are constantly being preached to about the evils of dictatorships around the world, personified by the likes of Kim Jung Un in North Korea. Should May get her way Kim will be looking to the UK for hints on repressing his people even further.
And lest people here think ‘ah well, sure its only in England’, they should not forget that our two main unionist parties here are still trying to curry favour with the Tories so they may gain some influence, and increase the Tory majority.
That is the main reason why they are slavishly following Westminster diktats on welfare reform which will deprive and punish the poor, unfortunate and disabled in loyalist communities every bit as much as in nationalist/republican communities.
They are totally abandoning their own power base in the hope of some kudos or even crumbs from Cameron’s table – how shortsighted!
An excellent and well researched (or recalled) article. I would disagree that the Cruiser mooted equal respect for Nationalists and Unionists. He loathed any manifestation of northern nationalism. His views were and are shared by much of the southern media, politicians and chattering classes. The current government have kept their distance from northern nationaiist aspirations for a united Ireland and even equality. Fianna Fáil are no better.