Seeing Paraic O’Brien reporting from Kiev following a script harmonising with other anti-Russian commentators I wondered how much independent research he had done on the roots of the quarrel.
I remember him reporting following an Irish General Election and an uninformed listener could be forgiven that he thought Proportional Representation with its slow presentation of results was a peculiarly quaint Irish invention.
In this patronising sneer at the Irish people he displayed an abysmal ignorance of Irish history during the previous 100 years.
Proportional Representation was IMPOSED on Ireland by British Prime Minister Lloyd George for local elections. on the recommendation of the Top Brass of the Royal Irish Constabulary, following the 1918 General Election.
In that General Election the Constabulary had confiscated Sinn Fein election literature, the British Censor had obliterated much of the Sinn Fein Manifesto and most Sinn Fein candidates were being held in British jails. The Election was held under the First Past the Post System.
Before the Election Sinn Fein held 6 seats ,the Irish Parliamentary Party held 73 and the Unionists held 26.
Following the Election Sinn Fein had won 73 seats, the Irish Parliamentary Party retained 6 (4 of them resulting from a pact with Sinn Fein) and the Unionists retained 26. Sinn Fein had campaigned promising to abstain fom Westminster, and if victorious to establish a Sovereign Independent Republic. Britain had launched the Great War claiming that it was for the right of self-determination of nations.
Under the new Proportional Representation system, imposed to clip Sinn Fein’s wings, County Council, Municipal, and other local government elections in January and June 1920 Sinn Fein and Irish Labour candidates in alliance with them won majorities in most local authorities.
In March 1920 the recently elected Lord Mayor of Cork, Tomas MacCurtain was murdered in his house in front of his wife by Royal Irish Constabulary under the command of District Inspector Swanzy. An Inquest examined the evidence and brought in a verdict of murder on the RIC, D.I.Swanzy, the British Secretary of State for Ireland, and David Lloyd the UK Prime Minister.
Lloyd George oversaw a campaign of murderous terror in Ireland until July 1921 and in December that year threatened Irish negotiators with its resumption on a larger scale unless they immediately signed a document abolishing the democratically established Republic.
Terror soon resumed, but this time between former friends and an “economy of English blood” to the delight of Lord Birkenhead.
Lloyd George did not arrange for Proportional Representation in Britain, He had condemned the system when his friend C.P.Scott of the Manchester Guardian advocated it.
One can wonder how Paraic O’Brien who knows little of the intricacies of politics in these islands can be an authority on Russian and. Ukrainian affairs after a wet weekend in just one of those countries.
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