A Proper Jab

Headline: Time for tough tactics instead of tough talking As today (Saturday 10 April) marks the 23rd anniversary of the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, controversial political commentator Dr John Coulter uses his latest column to maintain that the secret to saving the peace process lies with the Chief Constable adopting tough tactics against rioters.  With both republicans and loyalists now rioting in Northern Ireland, the time has come for PSNI Chief Constable Simon Byrne to act tough to stamp out the street hooliganism.   What began as high tensions in loyalist areas in the wake of the Northern Ireland Protocol plus the decision by prosecutors not to charge anyone over the funeral last June of veteran IRA terrorist Bobby Storey has seen the traditional Easter holidays descend into so-called Protestants attacking police officers with petrol bombs and other missiles.    The escalating violence prompted an early recall of the Northern Ireland Assembly to discuss the loyalist violence, but even before politicians began their debate, rioting republicans had already made their presence felt in scenes reminiscent of the dark days of the Troubles.    This has been Northern Ireland’s darkest hour since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 which ushered in both the peace process and a return of devolved government at Stormont.    Prior to the Assembly recall debate, Northern Ireland’s First Minister and Democratic Unionist Party leader Arlene Foster had already called for the Chief Constable to resign.   However, with republicans now entering the rioting arena in Belfast, the debate now switches from what caused the riots to flare initially in loyalist strongholds, to how can the hooliganism be stamped out.   Essentially, the crisis will not be solved in the immediate short-term by throwing money at working class loyalist areas. Indeed, with pandemic restrictions being gradually eased in Northern Ireland, it could lure more young people onto the streets.   Recent weeks have also seen a security crackdown on the loyalist criminal gangs and their drug-dealing empires under the cover of the loyalist terror gangs, which have supposedly been on ceasefire since 1994.    Many of those involved in the rioting are teenagers who were not even born when the Good Friday Agreement was signed. Such youthful hooligans will not listen to the outcome of a Stormont debate condemning their violence or appeals for calm.    The ball is now well and truly back in Simon Byrne’s court as the injury count for his officers during the riots rises nightly. He cannot afford to wait until an officer is killed before acting.   He has three options. He can adopt a ‘softly, softly’ approach in the hope that the rioting atmosphere literally burns itself out, especially in loyalist areas across Northern Ireland.    However, as his injury toll mounts, and with republicans now joining the fray, this option may find itself on the back burner strategically.    If the ‘sit back and take approach’ will not defuse the situation, then he must restore order on the streets using the ‘iron fist’ approach. This involves his specially trained riot police using baton charges, tear gas and water cannon if necessary to drive the hooligans off the streets and into the jail cells where the courts can prosecute them.    If Chief Constable Byrne is worried about loyalists and republicans responding by targeting his Northern Ireland-based officers, he can call on experienced riot police from other constabularies throughout the UK.    The PSNI, like its forerunner the Royal Ulster Constabulary, has a high percentage of Protestants in its ranks, many of whom would live in loyalist areas of Northern Ireland.    Mr Byrne would not like a situation as has happened in the past when tensions between the loyalist community and the police rose whereby police officers’ homes were attacked.    His third option – and this would involve pressing the so-called security nuclear button – would be to admit that he does not have the manpower to combat the rioting and requires the deployment once again of the British Army, especially to restore calm in loyalist strongholds.    At the start of the Troubles in the late Sixties and early Seventies, it was the rioting situation which got so bad that the then RUC and Stormont Government could not cope and the Army had to be sent in to nationalist areas.    Ultimately, the security situation deteriorated to the degree that the original Stormont Parliament was axed in 1972.    Politicians and police alike do not want to see a return to the days of the Troubles, which cost more than 3,000 lives.    What is really at stake in Northern Ireland is not the Protocol or coronavirus restrictions – but law and order on the streets and the future of the Stormont Assembly itself.    After all, the Assembly only resumed its duties last year after a three-year suspension. The real question is – what controls the streets of Northern Ireland; the petrol bomb or the ballot box? Time is ticking for Stormont, the police, and for loyalism itself. ReplyForward

Headline: Plan B to wreck Protocol – the Russians are coming!
Unionists have united to get the Northern Ireland Protocol axed, but what happens if their combined legal challenge fails – do they have a Plan B to derail the Protocol? Political commentator, Dr John Coulter, proposes a radical alternative – the Ulster Russia Friendship Society. 
It’s only taken some 40 years, but at long last Unionism is uniting using its brains and not the boots.    Unionism is united in recognising the danger to Northern Ireland from the Protocol, which is effectively the European Union’s method of punishing the United Kingdom for daring to leave the EU.    In practice, the Protocol keeps Northern Ireland under the EU thumb and serves as a warning to the remaining almost 30 members of the EU which would have a significant euro-skeptic political factions in their nations.   The Protocol is really a double-edged political sword – a caning for the UK for leaving the EU by focusing on a region of the UK which voted ‘remain’ in the 2016 referendum, and a shot across the bows of other EU members thinking of also holding referendums to quit the EU. The blunt message from Brussels is – remember what happened to wee Northern Ireland !   Initially, Unionism has learned from the mistakes of 1985 when Thatcher and FitzGerald signed the Anglo-Irish Agreement giving Southern Ireland its first real say in the running of Northern Ireland since before partition.    Based on Dublin and London’s experience of 1974 when Unionism’s marching feet collapsed the then power-sharing Sunningdale Executive during the Ulster Workers’ Council strike and loyalist terrorism’s no-warning bomb blitz in Dublin and Monaghan, Unionism thought it could easily overturn the Hillsborough Accord with its Ulster Says No street campaign.    That flopped miserably as the Maryfield Secretariat near Belfast worked very effectively, manned by Dublin’s civil servants, while Unionists tramped the wet and cold streets, towns and cities of Northern Ireland as the Ulster Says No drifted into the Still Says No campaign.    Apart from some now on the fringes of militant loyalism, the pro-Union community has realised that the boot is no substitute for the brain when it comes to dealing with Dublin, Westminster and Brussels.    While there is a strong chance the legal eagles within the pro-Union community could practically wrong-foot those who insist the Protocol be implemented, has Unionism an effective plan if this legal Plan A flops?   In short, has Unionism analysed what the Achilles heel is in the whole Protocol system? Hopefully, should the legal challenge either fail or be ignored or side-stepped by pro-Protocol implementers, Unionism will not resort to the boot and take to the streets again as in 1985. Unionism now needs to box clever, and be at least half a dozen political moves ahead of Leinster House, Westminster and the EU.    If there is one nation the EU and the London Government both distrusts and fears, it’s Russia. Okay, to mention that seems like the 1966 American comedy film, ‘The Russians Are Coming’.    For years, the Right-wing pro-Conservative pressure group, the National Monday Club, used to warn that Ireland could become the UK’s Cuba.    Part of the Club’s warnings about the dangers of a united Ireland was that it could open up a situation whereby NATO could be compromised if the Russians set up a power base in the ‘new Ireland’, sparking a crisis which former American President JKF faced during the so-called Cuban missile crisis before his assassination.    Unionism needs to prepare itself that if the legal challenge to have the Protocol axed fails, it will be further proof that Westminster, Dublin and Brussels have become the new Pan Nationalist Front to throw Northern Ireland’s pro-Union community ‘under the bus’ politically.    In this case, there will be much speculation that Unionism should prepare itself for the prospect of an economic united Ireland in a post Brexit and post Covid society. Then the advice from the English Government in London would be – just make the best of it!   Plan B in this case is for the pro-Union community in Northern Ireland to form an official Ulster Russia Friendship Society with a view to establishing formal trade and political links with Moscow. Such a move by the pro-Union community leaders in Northern Ireland would send shock waves through the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office in London, let alone MI6 headquarters and 10 Downing Street.    Okay, given the massive street protests which Russian boss Vladimir Putin is facing at the moment, the Russian government may not have the best public relations image in global politics, but any links with Russia are bound to put the ‘frighteners’ up London.    Unionism’s problem is the considerable majority which British Prime Minister Boris Johnston enjoys in the House of Commons. He is not in the same political cul-de-sac as his predecessor Theresa May found herself in by relying on DUP MPs’ support to survive. Put bluntly, DUP MPs are now ‘surplus to requirement’ politically.    Could the implementation of the Protocol also be the Boris Johnston-led Government’s way of punishing the DUP for the way it behaved when Mrs May held the keys of 10 Downing Street?   And in an era whereby the DUP and Sinn Fein are being accused of staging political stunts in the war of words and blame game over border checks, the Ulster Russia Friendship Society will have to deliver for Northern Ireland. It cannot be dismissed as political sabre rattling or window dressing merely to scare London.    Northern Ireland once had a tremendous reputation for ship building and aircraft manufacturing. Surely Ulster has enough talent that if Putin wanted his nuclear submarines and ships repaired or new ones built, he could get a deal in Belfast?   Could the runways at Belfast International Airport or even Belfast City George Best Airport not be extended or improved to the level that Russian bombers could land for refit and refuelling?    Could our schools, colleges and universities not organise educational exchange programmes for Northern Ireland students to study in Moscow?     Given Putin’s career background in the Russian secret service, the old KGB, and Russia’s record on human rights, I’ve no doubt the cries of ‘Arrest Commie Coulter’ will be muttered.   But the reality of the current situation must be faced sensibly by the pro-Union community in Northern Ireland. Not since partition in the 1920s has Northern Ireland faced such a constitutional crisis in the form of the Protocol.    Sunningdale and Direct Rule from Westminster fade into political insignificance when compared to the impact of the Protocol.    The movie, The Russians Are Coming’, may provoke hysterical laughter among its audiences. But something tells me, London, Dublin and Brussels will not be laughing at the prospect of Mr Putin being given a formal reception at Parliament Buildings, Stormont, when a new Northern Ireland/Russia Trade Agreement is signed, consigning the so-called Protocol to the economic dustbin.    The weakness in the Protocol is not in the actual measures which it is implementing, whether or not these can be proven to be legal or not. The essential weakness in the Protocol is that the EU does not want Russia to become a full member of the European Union. Imagine the political chaos which Russian MEPs could cause in the European Parliament!   It’s all very well allowing former Soviet bloc nations to become full members of the EU, but not Mother Russia herself!    Likewise, look at the number of Royal Navy and Merchant Navy sailors from across the Emerald Isle, and especially Northern Ireland, who served with the convoys bringing much-needed supplies to Russia in the Second World War against Hitler. A future Ulster Russia Friendship Society would honour their bravery, service and sacrifice. Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter  @JohnAHCoulterListen to commentator Dr John Coulter’s programme, Call In Coulter, every Saturday morning around 10.15 am on Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM. Listen online at http://radio.garden/listen/sunshine-104-9fm/tBZsuX1o

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