Monthly Archives: September 2014

Be Wary of Home Rule Vow

The English Establishment can’t be trusted so the Scots, Welsh and Irish north and south should band together and issue a Unilateral Declaration of Independence if Cameron doesn’t cough up his Home Rule promises.

Next year marks the 50^th anniversary of Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith declaring UDI from Britain in November 1965 in what has become modern-day Zimbabwe in Africa.

The 45 per cent of Scots who voted for independence should not be viewed as a defeat, but the first stage in a political process which will undoubtedly lead to real Home Rule for many regions of the British Isles.

Sounds good on paper, but in reality can we really trust the ‘Little Englanders’ who comprise the Westminster Establishment to keep their promises on greater powers for the regional assemblies in Edinburgh, Stormont and Cardiff?

History has not been kind to those who were foolish enough to take these ‘Little Englander’ cliques at their word.

In the 1920s, the Anglo-Irish Treaty did not bring independence – it brought partition and sparked a bloody civil war which saw more IRA men executed by their fellow Free State republicans than were killed by the notorious Tans.

Earlier in 1912, the English had promised Irish Home Rule, but used the excuse of the Great War to get tens of thousands of nationalists slaughtered in the bloody trenches of the Western Front.

Unionists have fared no better with English promises. It was the English Establishment which axed the original Stormont in 1972, two years after this same clique had chopped the B Specials, often viewed as the pride of the Unionist military machine in Ireland.

The Ulster Defence Regiment and RUC were to follow suit.

Former premier Maggie Thatcher was in secret talks with the Provos while at the same time trying to convince Unionists she was their firm friend with her notorious ‘Out, out, out’ speech.

I recall an evening meal with a very senior Unionist in the 1980s who boasted about his great relationship with Maggie. Then she dumped the Anglo-Irish Agreement on him which gave the Republic its first say in Northern affairs since partition. Talk about a kick in the nuts!

The majority of Northern voters approved the Good Friday Agreement with a resounding Yes vote. If there was a re-run today, many Unionists would now vote No.

With Stormont on the brink of meltdown, would the DUP under Paisley senior have signed the St Andrews agreement in 2006?

If Sinn Fein has got such a good deal on policing for the nationalist community, why is there such a dangerous dissident republican movement?

It is becoming clear that as the end of this decade nears, Westminster’s attitude is rapidly becoming – England for the English and the rest can piss off!

If Unionists want Westminster to take them seriously about a stepping up their campaign over parades and the past, then Ulster Independence must be put back on the agenda.

There’s no way that Cameron can financially afford to grant the Scots those ludicrous Home Rule promises and not have a fresh civil war in England.

When the Scots realise they have been duped, that 45 per cent will increase to the much-needed 51 per cent who want independence.

In the meantime, I am today formally launching my National Front for the Liberation of Scotland (NFLS) pressure group to get that vital 6 per cent.

Stormont needs to go a step further – if the English pays for welfare reform, the North will implement Home Rule. If the English don’t foot the bill for welfare reform, then Robbo must take his place alongside legendary leaders Carson and Craig and declare UDI for the North.

If my NFLS can swing independence for Scotland, Ireland is only a stepping stone away. Independence for Stormont is by far a much better solution than the vastly watered down Home Rule currently on offer from the English Establishment.

This article first appeared in The Irish Daily Star

Home Rule for Ireland is now only months away.

   With the Scots voting to stay in the Union, Brit Prime Minister Dave Cameron will have to cough up all the cash concessions he promised them if they gave the two fingers to Big Alex Salmond’s independence campaign.

Let’s face reality, if the SNP had won, like Ireland, there would have been partition in Scotland with parts of the staunchly Scottish Presbyterian Highlands and Islands wanting to remain in the UK.

And in spite of the Yes defeat, Irish nationalists will benefit. The referendum debate has boosted the campaign for another border poll, especially as the – albeit slow – economic recovery continues in the Republic.

Likewise, Cameron cannot – in the teeth of this No victory – divest new and far-reaching tax powers to the Scottish Parliament and not give the same powers to a Northern Assembly, even if the latter is on the brink of collapse over expected hard-hitting welfare reform cuts.

If Cameron’s Home Rule package is good enough for the Scots, it should also be good enough for the Northern Irish parties. It could well be the deal breaker which keeps the DUP and Sinn Fein from forcing a collapse of Stormont and the return of Direct Rule from Westminster to the North.

Perhaps this is what DUP Northern First Minister Peter Robinson wants? After all, with Westminster, Dail and Stormont elections on the horizons in the next two years, what party wants to be blamed for the welfare reform cuts?

A Scottish-style Home Rule package for Stormont would also boost the cross-border bodies and the British-Irish institutions, effectively rubbing out the Irish border and creating a Dail/Stormont Home Rule political settlement in Ireland.

Sinn Fein’s real aim is to become a minority government partner in the next Dail with either Fianna Fail or Fine Gael as the senior partner.

To achieve this, it must prove to the Southern electorate that Sinn Fein is merely more than a Hard Left, anti-austerity party.

Keeping Stormont afloat against the wishes of the DUP would be one way that Sinn Fein could prove that it is politically mature enough to warrant the trust of the Southern voters.

The DUP seems determined to sink Stormont and impose Direct Rule because it knows the Shinners won’t take their Commons seats.

Irish Home Rule using the cross-border bodies would considerably strengthen Sinn Fein’s hand at establishing an all-island political structure.

The Achilles Heel in the whole process is that the narrowness of the No victory in Scotland might scare Northern Unionists into creating an electoral pact.

What happens if Unionists start using the Home Rule cross-border bodies to nudge the Republic into a Commonwealth coalition?

Sinn Fein needs to box very clever in the coming months. The key hurdle republicans must clear is – can Sinn Fein persuade the Brits to implement welfare reform, whilst keeping Stormont at the same time?

A huge pitfall for Sinn Fein is that if Stormont is suspended, when it is re-instated the Irish Home Rule package will be overtly Unionist, giving the DUP an effective voice in the running of the South.

Now that Scotland is still in the Union, could Northern Unionists plot to get the South back in a new Union? Don’t titter, Irish politics is the art of the impossible!

This article first appeared in the Irish Daily Star on 22nd September 2014

The Shinners must save Stormont otherwise they risk being backed into a blind alley by Robbo’s Dupers.

   It’s somewhat ironic that Sinn Fein must save the partitionist Northern Assembly, a parliament which the Shinners’ military wing, the IRA, tried for decades to destroy.

Sinn Fein has also been strangely quiet about the Scottish independence vote probably because it knows a Yes vote will not lead inevitably to an all-island republic.

Secretly, Sinn Fein must be hoping for a slender victory for the Unionist No camp and the benefits which the Scottish Parliament will acquire if Scotland votes to remain in the Union.

Robbo is taking a leaf out of newly-crowned world champion Carl Frampton and is boxing clever over the Assembly’s future.

Robbo’s claim Stormont is not fit for purpose is a very unsubtle hint to the Brits to suspend the Assembly.

This will force the Brits to implement the drastic welfare reform cuts, after which the DUP will campaign for the restoration of the Assembly – complete with new Scottish-style powers, following a snap Stormont poll which will seal victory for the DUP.

Then again, if the Scots vote to go it alone, does this mean a large slice of the billions of pounds which Westminster gives Scotland annually could be divided between Stormont and the cross-border bodies?

After all, given that the vast majority of Scottish Commons MPs come from Labour and the Scottish nationalists, a Yes victory could virtually guarantee a Tory Government at Westminster for years to come.

And given, too, the Shinners don’t take their Commons seats, this places Robbo’s DUP in a prime spot to cut a deal with Brit Premier Dave Cameron to become part of the next Tory coalition Government.

In the days of majority Unionist rule in the North, the UUP had a seat at the Brits’ Cabinet table in London.

But the election-battered UUP has no Commons seats. If the DUP can get Stormont suspended, the power base shifts to Westminster where the DUP has eight MPs – enough to tip the balance in a hung parliament.

Unionist voters would flock to the DUP in their tens of thousands if Robbo’s spin doctors push the line that a vote for the DUP will mean a Cabinet seat. That would also spell the death knell for the UUP.

The Scottish vote, too, is on such a knife-edge that the Old Firm factor will decide the outcome in terms of a Yes/No victory.

The Yes camp has been stressing the millions which will come for Scotland from North Sea oil.

Even if Scotland votes Yes, expect Cameron’s Brits to pull a flanker and try to get the oil-rich Shetland islands to re-join a new Union in the same way the Brits maintain their rule in Gibraltar and the Falklands.

Cameron also has the problem with these new power promises to keep the Scots in the Union. What about all the English regions which want their own federal parliament?

What about additional powers for the Welsh Assembly? A slender No victory will almost certainly guarantee Home Rule for Bonnie Scotland.

And if the Scots secure Home Rule, then the North must get Home Rule – provided there is an Assembly to administer that new found Home Rule status.

That’s why it’s imperative the Shinners outflank Robbo and the DUP and keep the Assembly functioning.

Sinn Fein must cut a deal for additional powers for the current cross-border bodies. Home Rule at Stormont will only work for Sinn Fein if it can become the largest Assembly party after the next Stormont poll.

That scenario will only come about if the Shinners avoid Robbo’s trap of a suspended Assembly.

“The Fallen and the Brave”, 5th September 2014: a review

Whilst over in Belfast on my recent research trip I attended Greater Shankill ACT’s “The Fallen and the Brave” exhibition, held on the 5th and 6th September at the Spectrum Centre on the Shankill Road.

Greater Shankill ACT is part of the ACT Initiative. The ACT (Action for Community Transformation) Initiative describes itself as a “conflict transformation process supporting former UVF/RHC personnel on their journey from conflict to peace”. Various ACT franchises exist throughout Belfast and NI, of which the Greater Shankill branch is unsurprisingly the most active. It is worth pointing out that Greater Shankill ACT receives no public money and that this exhibition was staged at its own expense. Read more »

Swap Islamic jihadists in Ireland and Britain for persecuted Christians in the Middle East.

   There’s no doubt Ireland and Britain as two leading Christian nations could play a major role in preventing the whole scale massacre of Christians, especially by radicals from the militant Islamic State movement.

But it has to be a two-way process. For every Middle Eastern Christian refugee who is given safety in Ireland or Britain, a clearly identified Islamic radical should be sent packing to ISIS territory.

Ireland not only has an obligation as a Christian nation to ‘do its bit’ to help Christian refugees, it must also provide protection for decent muslims living on the Emerald Isle who want nothing to do with jihadist Islam.

Stereotyping can have very dire consequences; just ask Pastor James McConnell, the outspoken cleric who is retiring from North Belfast’s Whitewell Metropolitan Tabernacle.

He branded Islam ‘satanic’ and ‘heathen’ during a filmed sermon.

Surely the muslims who serve with dignity and dedication in the security forces of Britain, Ireland and the United States are not ‘satanic’?

As a Christian myself, I have had meals on several occasions with muslim members of the Egyptian Society of Northern Ireland.

There’s no way any of these folks could be labelled ‘satanic’.

That’s akin to branding all Catholics as IRA terrorists, or all Protestants as backing the heinous crimes of the UVF Shankill Butchers gang.

But the hard reality is that we need to protect our democratic society from jihadists, whether they be from the Islamic State, or the so-called supporters of the Ku Klux Klan waging racist attacks on migrant workers in Belfast.

Surely the intelligence community in Ireland has enough facts to implement a round-up of radicals who can be deported from these shores?

Unfortunately, mention the ‘I’ word – internment – and it immediately conjures up the notorious images of British troops and police rounding up republicans and loyalists in 1971 based on outdated intelligence.

Let’s not beat about the bush – we need the immediate internment of Islamic jihadists and white racist supremacists across Ireland and bung them in a new-look Maze jail, near Lisburn.

The terror threat from jihadists has reached such a fever pitch that Ireland radically needs its own version of the Yanks’ Guantanamo Bay to hold suspected Islamic extremists.

And security forces must also know who is suspected to be orchestrating racist attacks across the North. These racist suspects need to be interned, too.

While Pastor McConnell has apologised for his initial remarks on Islam, the damage may already have been done.

As even more Christians get butchered in the Middle East by Islamic radicals, unfortunately it is only a matter of time before racist bigots begin targeting Ireland’s steadily growing muslim community.

Such bigots quickly move on to other people they deem to be ‘the enemy’. That’s why the crisis has to be nipped in the bud before it becomes a social epidemic.

During World War Two, the British interned anyone with fascist or Nazi sympathies. And it should not be forgotten it was the British who invented the concept of the concentration camp during the 19^th century Boer Wars in Southern Africa.

Ireland has an impeccable record for sending both cash aid and Christian missionaries across the globe.

Just as Ireland helped the Vietnamese boat people in their time of crisis in the late 20^th century, the island must continue this Christian spirit by extending the hand of help to the Middle East’s Christian community.

To Enda Kenny and Peter Robinson I say – forget fancy rhetoric, let the round-up of Islamic radicals and racist bigots begin!

(John Coulter, Irish Daily Star)

Bring back the IRA to combat the dissident debacle!

I haven’t contracted Magaluf Madness; the IRA I’m talking about is an Irish Republican Association of ex-jailbirds, former terrorists and current members of the Provos.

This Association would operate along the lines of the Royal British Legion where anyone connected to the Provisional IRA could keep in touch with each other.

The Legion and other ex-service associations have played a sterling part in helping old soldiers, sailors and airmen maintain a social contact.

That social contact is sadly lacking in the modern republican movement and has been a significant factor in the growth of the anti-Shinner dissident republican cause.

Today is my birthday and I remember the enthusiasm I felt two decades ago when the Provos announced their first formal ceasefire.

But what has constantly amazed me is even though Sinn Féin has acquired bucket-loads of benefits for the nationalist community compared to loyalism, the threat from dissident republican terror factions is just as fearsome today as it was when the Good Friday Agreement was signed in 1998.

Unionism – and especially the loyalist working class – has not been able to reap the benefits of the peace process compared to republicans.

While there may be constant rumblings about the emergence of a dissident loyalist movement, the reality is that hardline Protestants seem more intent on attacking each other and feuding over drugs profits than murdering Catholics.

So why have police chief constables since the Belfast Agreement consistently warned about the threat of dissident republicans?

The best birthday present these dissidents could give me is to copy what the Provos did in 1994 and declare a ceasefire.

The Provos carried out decommissioning of their arsenals and some suspect that they disbanded their terror cells in certain areas.

Hindsight is a wonderful gift. Perhaps disbanding was a hasty move in terms of maintaining discipline within the republican communities – and I’m not advocating punishment beatings or knee-cappings.

The problem with the current republican leadership is that they will all soon be pensioners and a generation of young republican is emerging for whom the 1994 ceasefire is part of their school history lessons.

An Irish Republican Association could also have become a focal point, not just for internal discipline within the terror movement, but also as a discussion base for current and former Provos to prevent defections of experienced terrorists to the ranks of the dissidents.

Such an Association could also still operate as a back channel between mainstream republicans and the various dissident factions to bring about the latter’s permanent ceasefire and decommissioning.

Just as the muslim community has had to cope with the threat of young Islamic radicals, so too, as the centenary of the Easter Rising looms will the republican community have to deal with the potential radicalisation of young nationalists.

As the ex-IRA jailbirds steadily lose their influence in the republican movement, 21st century Sinn Féin is becoming increasingly dominated by the ‘draft dodger generation’ – those republicans who have never served an apprenticeship in the ‘RA.

Ever since the pre-Cromwell 1641 Irish rebellion, each generation of nationalism has thrown up a violent phase.

With rumours that some dissident republican factions have climbed into bed politically with Islamic radicals, how long before the next generation of Troubles kicks off?

Hopefully, I won’t be waiting another decade before nationalists think smart and launch the Irish Republican Association.

September 2, 2014________________

This article appeared in the September 1, 2014 edition of the Irish Daily Star.