“The British must start paying attention to Northern Ireland rather than cynically using it.” Thus spoke Jonathan Powell who was former Prime Minister Blair’s advisor during the negotiations resulting in the 1998 EU-UK Belfast treaty (aka the Good Friday Agreement (GFA). Powell was familiar with the Conservative party’s unwritten policy of destabilizing N. I. as required for decades to justify the deployment of troops, suspension of democratic institutions and distraction from more pressing domestic problems. Ever since the vote to leave the EU in 2016, the storm clouds have gathered around the British ship of State. First, the nasty negotiations and legal disputes surrounding both the EU Withdrawal Agreement and its Northern Ireland Protocol; then the growth of Sinn Fein votes and success in N. I. and in the Republic; and, most recently the criticism by American political leadership for Britain’s exit from the EU and undermining the Good Friday Agreement.
Unfortunately that ship is currently guided by Boris Johnson, a man known more for his deceit than for his deft navigation of these political shoals. Consider the recent release and promotion of a White Paper on the new “Global Britain.” At the press conference Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab was positively giddy about Britain’s world trade prowess, while TV screens throughout Britain showed ‘loyal’ arsonists rioting ostensibly over the inability of Britain to get foodstuffs and potted plants to N. I. The optics could not have been worse. Four years after the Brexit referendum, PM Johnson still cannot figure out how to fulfill EU custom responsibilities. The resulting turmoil over the N. I. Protocol suggests brand ‘Global Britain’ is not ready for prime time.
However, many events that unfold in N. I. are not what they first seem. The violations of international law regarding the EU-UK Withdrawal treaty and the N. I. Protocol are Johnson’s arrogant way of showing Britain “is a rule maker not a rule taker.” The political rise and success of Sinn Fein has more to do with First Minister Arlene Foster’s disregard of Northern Ireland’s vote in 2016 to remain in the EU. She claimed in January that Brexit had given N. I. “the best of both worlds.” She has proven a worthy disciple of Boris who former French Foreign Minister Sylvie Berman once labeled “…an unrepentant liar.”
Boris’s greatest difficulty, however, may be his handling of the GFA, an international treaty which won bipartisan support in America and has brought a measure of peace, if not justice, to six counties of Ireland. He scuttled the Stormont House pact and has obstructed every effort to hold Britain accountable for nearly 1000 killings of civilians in NI. Most of those deaths are the result of a lawless collusion between British security forces (PSNI, ARMY, MI5) and loyalist surrogate terrorists. The killings were either minimally or never investigated and collectively would qualify Britain as a “State sponsor of terrorism” consistent with legal definitions used in U. S. federal law and in the reports of Sir John Stevens and Ireland’s Smithwick Tribunal. Reporting on the cover-up, the Irish journalist Susan McKay ruefully observed: “If the British have their way, no one will get truth or justice.”
This Britain’s failure violates Article II of the European Convention of Human Rights. Boris has chosen to ignore those obligations and again make his own rules. He is pushing Parliament to pass a bill to unilaterally pardon the security services personnel involved in the killing of those Irish citizens. Other murders resulting from the work of British double agents in N. I. are to be similarly made legal in the SPYCOPS bill. There were at least 100 murders involving those agents operating in N. I. documented in the Kenova Inquiry. With one stroke of a pen, he will mock Ireland, the EU, the U. S. and the rule of law.
What would seem like a dilemma for many is not for the British. Having been convinced in the 1970s by Whitehall ‘securocrats’ that the civil rights movement in N. I. was Communist inspired, Britain went all in criminalizing and killing with impunity and corrupting the justice system. The votes on the Overseas Operations and SpyCop bills will preserve the carefully crafted cover story of fighting Communism and terrorism while securing the last colony in Europe.
So where does that leave Americans and the bi-partisan political leadership that backed the GFA? Britain’s actions are an embarrassment to the United States and a breach of trust that will surely color any US-UK trade negotiations and diminish confidence in Britain’s ability to meet contract and treaty obligations. The EU is always mindful of British treachery and will be a higher trade priority for the U. S. Are there any take-aways for Boris? Apparently not. He recently announced that the Irish unity referendum…stipulated in the GFA—“will not be held for a very long time.” There may come a time—–some say it is long past—-when Americans must question the so-called special relationship and stand up for Ireland and against John Bull’s bullying.
Michael J. Cummings, a native of Springfield, Mass., is a graduate of St. Anselm’s College (B. A., 1968) and New York University (M. P. A., 1970) . He established the American Brexit Committee in 2016 and serves as Secretary. He is a former member of the National Boards of the Irish American Unity Conference (1996-2013), the Ancient Order of Hibernians (2001-2008), and the Irish Northern Aid Committee (1988-1996). He also served as Chairman of the Capital District Irish National Caucus (1979-1982. He worked for the State of New York for 36 years in various capacities including as Assistant Deputy State Comptroller and Director of the Justice Court Fund. He served on the Peace and Justice Commission of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany.
Cummings has appeared on American, English and Irish television and radio and his commentary and letters appeared in major American, Irish-American, and Catholic print media. He has been married 48 years to Nuala Hogan, a nurse and native of Ireland.
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