The Green Ribbon

Corbyn, McDonnell, and the Irish peace process

As many people expected, the election campaign has brought rigorous scrutiny of Jeremy Corbyn's past statements on Ireland, as well as those of his shadow chancellor, John McDonnell. Both are London MPs with close links to the Irish community in the city, particularly significant in Corbyn's constituency of Islington North.

For some years it was my job as political editor, and then executive editor of the London-based Irish World to chronicle the political life of that community. As a result, I had some involvement with the kind of stories that are now filtering into national press cuttings and Tory opposition research. In 2003, I asked one of our freelancers, Paul Donovan, to cover the Bloody Sunday Commemoration where John McDonnell made his oft-quoted comments about the need 'to honour IRA members'.

When our story was picked up by The Sun, I could only complain, somewhat lamely, to the Press Gazette that our copy had been used without attribution, in a supposed 'exclusive'. Some have suggested that we were naive in publishing details of McDonnell's speech. My editor, the late Donal Mooney had instilled in us the that our role was to speak up for the best interests of the Irish community. As acting editor in Donal's absence, I had some apprehensions about the impact of the story, but I was also aware of criticisms circulating at the time that 'peace process journalists' were suppressing uncomfortable facts. Paul and I took the view, as Donal did when he was able to visit the office, that the story was newsworthy.

Following the Sun's coverage, McDonnell gave Paul a statement which sought to put his comments in the context of the crisis in the peace process at the time:

 In my speech I aimed to address republicans in terms they would understand. My message was that they had been successful in bringing about negotiations and that all those who contributed to this goal had won respect. Along with others, I am hoping to create the kinds of formulations through which the IRA, the loyalist paramilitaries and the British army can all depart the scene without a sense of abiding grievance. No side will move if movement is portrayed as humiliating surrender.

That effort has now been distorted into an alleged expression of support for the slaughter of innocent children. Let me be clear, I abhor and condemn the killing of innocent human beings. My heart goes out to all those who have lost friends and relatives in the Troubles.

How decisive an intervention by an MP at a small public meeting in London would have been in these terms is open to question, but as an analysis of the situation at the time it should not be dismissed. If the peace process was to get past the decommissioning logjam, it was IRA members who would have to be persuaded.

It is this internal dynamic within republicanism that is missed by Corbyn and McDonnell's critics. It is sometimes said that they were not working for peace because they engaged the leadership of Sinn Feín, rather than the SDLP, and that this encouraged republicans to continue the war. In reality, in working with Sinn Fein, they were working with the very people whose dialogue with grassroots republicanism was essential to the IRA ceasefire, and who needed to be able to demonstrate political influence to show that there was an alternative way forward. The SDLP itself tacitly recognised this through its own engagement with Sinn Fein in the Hume-Adams dialogue.

To dismiss the significance of republicanism's internal dynamics, it is necessary to assume that the Sinn Fein leadership could simply order the IRA membership into the very difficult position in which the Basque nationalist group ETA finds itself today: unilaterally disarming for no obvious political return. Given the history of IRA splits, this was always an unlikely scenario. 

Some years after the 2003 episode, I came across evidence that put the issue that McDonnell had alluded to, the status of IRA members, in a new light. It turned up at the National Archives in 30-year-old papers on the 1981 IRA hunger strike. At the height of a strike on 6 July, the night before the death of Joe McDonnell, Northern Ireland Secretary Humphrey Atkins set out the options for Mrs Thatcher. He recommended that the Government stand firm and wait for the strike to collapse. At the same time, he acknowledged that there were disadvantages to this course.

(v) The Provisionals need to settle the prisons problem on terms they can represent as acceptable to them if they are to go on - as we know some of them wish to do - to consider an end of the current terrorist campaign. A leadership which has "lost" on the prisons is in no position to do this.

(v) We should be discouraging the Provisionals from switching from terrorist to political activity at the very moment when we know they have begun to find political action attractive.

 What is striking about this is that there is no mention of a demand for a declaration of intent to withdraw by the British. The concerns which emerge in this and other contemporary documents, prisoner releases on one side, disarmament and the integrity of a ceasefire on the other, are not essentially different from those which emerged at the outset of the peace process in the 1990s.

If the peace party within republicanism was already in existence by 1981, and perhaps even earlier, Corbyn and McDonnell cannot have delayed its emergence, as their critics claim. Indeed, in engaging with Gerry Adams, they were probably already dealing with its leading representative at the time. Their sin was to recognise possibilities for political dialogue that the Government of the day was not yet ready to acknowledge.

While some of the criticism of Corbyn and McDonnell is driven by partisan cynicism, there is undoubtedly a sincere ideological element which finds the role of republican agency in the peace process difficult to acknowledge. Just as some Conservatives drank the Kool-Aid in their belief that Sadiq Khan was a dangerous Islamist, some perhaps expect a smoking gun that will show that Corbyn actually aided the IRA campaign. The fact that Corbyn reported the Sean O'Regan incident to the police as long ago as 1987 suggests this is most unlikely to happen.

Indeed what has been striking so far is the paucity of the opposition research delivered by the Tories and the right-wing press. The existence of an MI5 file, revealed by The Telegraph, puts Corbyn in the company of many Labour MPs from all wings of the party. It's biggest significance arguably lies in the fact that no action was taken as a result of its existence.

No more impressive was the Sun's promotion of Sean O'Callaghan, previously seen lending his counter-terrorist expertise to Tory think-tanks promoting Boris buses. O'Callaghan is no-one's idea of a compelling witness. In 1989, according to his own autobiography The Informer, he told the RUC and journalists that he killed Sinn Fein member Sean Corcoran. He then withdrew the admission, claiming he had been trying to draw attention to the case. By his own account, O'Callaghan is a proven liar, and he has for more questions to answer about the Troubles than those at whom he is pointing the finger.

Thin as they are, these attacks may yet work, on the old principle that if you throw enough mud some of it will stick. The fact remains that in the 1980s, Corbyn's approach to Northern Ireland did point beyond the orthodoxies that sustained what seemed at the time an interminable conflict. The 'War on Terror' cries out for similar scrutiny, and no less so because while the wars go on, the political class has largely ceded the term itself to the populist right.

The working class, Orwell said, are the most patriotic class of all, but it is perhaps the political class who are more prone to interpret patriotism in terms of fealty to the official orthodoxies of the day. Challenging that assumption is itself a patriotic task, one which puts Corbyn in a great English radical tradition.

British Intelligence Officers in Ireland: A Spotter’s Guide for Archival Researchers

In the course of researching the Irish Troubles at the National Archives, I've come across a fair few stray references to the intelligence services, and I've compiled this document for my Patreon subscribers (currently 2,885 words) while trying to make sense of them. Hopefully, it should give others engaged in similar research a few pointers as to what to look out for. 

Although the list of sources is fairly comprehensive, I would hope to include fuller inline references in future drafts, as well as longer biographies, although much of that material will overlap with the draft British Intelligence in Ireland book, to which it should eventually be incorporated as an appendix.

As ever, I'd welcome any feedback on areas that people would like to see expanded, and especially any tips on sources of information I've overlooked.

Frank Hall: from the UVF to MI5

Cross-posted from Patreon:

In my recent post on Maxwell Knight's unionist connections, I noted how his links to the far-right had led some to suggest the term collusion could be applied to MI5 in the 1930s.

I've since been re-reading Christopher Andrew's official history of MI5, as part of my research. Not a promising source on collusion, you might think but while Andrew covers relatively little ground in relation to MI5 in Ireland before the Troubles, he does include one particularly damning piece of evidence from the very earliest history of the organisation. 

It concerns the interrogation of Sir Roger Casement, following his landing in Ireland from Germany ahead of the Easter Rising in 1916:

After his arrest, Casement was jointly interrogated at Scotland Yard by Thomson, Captain Reginald 'Blinker' Hall, the DNI, and MI5's main Irish expert, the Old Harrovian Major (later Lieutenant Colonel) Frank Hall (no relation to the DNI), a landowner from County Down. The many conspiracy theorists attracted by the Casement affair have surprisingly failed to notice that before the war Frank Hall had been military secretary of the Ulster Volunteer Force and a gun-runner himself [1].

Andrew's source for this is Jeff Dudgeon whose earlier work on Casement reports that Hall was offered 'a job in Military Intelligence by a top Army Unionist', following the incorporation of the UVF into the army in 1914 [2].

This is a particularly suggestive comment in the light of the Curragh Mutiny earlier that year, when the Army had effectively backed the UVF in facing down the Home Rule policy of the Liberal Government.

Not to put too fine a point on it, there's a fairly sound case that MI5 was under the influence of right-wing subversives from the beginning.

Postscript: As it happens, one of my patrons, Pete Middleton, is running a Roger Casement and Irish in Islington Historical Walking Tour this Saturday.

References

[1] Andrew, Christopher; Defence of the Realm, The Authorized History of MI5, Allen Lane, 2009, p.87.

[2] Jeff Dudgeon, UVF and MI5: the double life of Q, Belfast Telegraph, archived at Ulster-Scots and Irish Unionist Resource, accessed 1 August 2017.

Spying on Paisley: How MI5 used Tara to infiltrate the DUP

From my latest post at Patreon:

The DUP-Conservative alliance that emerged from the 2017 election might seem like a natural one given the long history of the 'Orange card' as a Tory expedient at Westminster. 

There is however an equally long record of conflict between the British establishment and the the particular strand of unionism represented by the DUP.

One significant episode in this story came to light in 1976, when DUP leader Ian Paisley complained in the Commons about the activities of intelligence officials at the Northern Ireland Office. (Full story)

Not just five techniques – New evidence on torture in Northern Ireland

My latest piece at openDemocracy: 

British forces in Northern Ireland used waterboarding and electric shock treatment on detainees during the 1970s, newly uncovered files show. Witness statements and internal Whitehall correspondence released for the first time last month could have significant implications for international human rights law and British-Irish relations.

One victim of waterboarding in Belfast spoke out publicly about his experience for the first time at following the recovery of his original testimony from 1972, which recounts that he ‘felt like I was drowning or suffocating until I fell on the floor unconscious’

Full Story. 

Marching on Brokenshire's Chinese Wall

Originally posted on Patreon on 21 July 2017.

The DUP undoubtedly achieved a major political coup when it signed a confidence and supply deal with the Conservatives in the wake of the June general election. The existence of an alternative route to political influence offered the party a significant advantage in the ongoing talks to re-establish the power-sharing executive in Northern Ireland.

 

The extent of that advantage is now being tested. Earlier this week, Northern Ireland Secretary James Brokenshire said that the extra £1 billion of funding for Northern Ireland negotiated by the DUP should be spent by a restored executive, something that requires a new agreement between the DUP and Sinn Fein.

This position was challenged by DUP MP Sammy Wilson as introducing an element of conditionality that was not part of the original agreement. A subsequent statement from the Conservative Party acknowledged the need for more spending even without a new executive. However, there was no similar clarification from the Northern Ireland Office.

Is Labour moving towards a hard border in Ireland?

A cross-post from Patreon.

Labour's line on Brexit has hardened perceptibly in recent days, but only yesterday Jeremy Corbyn was still keeping his options open on the customs union. However, Labourlist reports that Shadow Trade Secretary Barry Gardiner has now suggested that remaining in the EU customs union would leave the UK a 'vassal state'.

 

Gardiner says that the UK must leave the customs union in order to 'regain control of our borders', but as a former Northern Ireland Minister, and an MP with many Irish constituents in Brent North, he must know that departure would create a chaotic situation on the UK's only land border.

 

Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney warned recently that if Britain left the customs union there was no solution in sight that would avoid a hard border and damage to the peace process. I set out some of the difficulties in this October post, which argued that paramilitaries and organised crime would inevitably be the major beneficiaries of a customs border in Ireland. 

Maxwell Knight's Irish connections - and a word about this page

A cross-post from Patreon.

The Guardian this week reviewed an important new biography of Maxwell Knight, MI5's key agent runner in the 1930s and 40s. 

 

As the review notes, Knight had remarkably close personal links to the far right, having been director of intelligence for the British fascisti in the 1920s. Like previous writers, Henry Hemming concludes that Knight was ultimately a hardline conservative whose British nationalism distinguished him from those who looked to the continental fascist powers. There is no doubt that his knowledge of the latter milieu was valuable to Britain during the Second World War.

Nevertheless, others have seen a measure of collusion in the relationship between MI5 and the far-right at this time. John G. Hope has suggested that Knight used the fascists as ‘a means for pursuing MI5’s anti-socialist agenda'. There was certainly a trend of agents recruited on the right being run into the left, rather than vice-versa.

 

Knight began his intelligence career in the 1920s with George Makgill's private Industrial Intelligence Bureau. According to Christopher Andrew's official history of MI5, Makgill operated against Irish Republicans among other targets. In the 1930s, Knight's key agent in the British Union of Fascists was William Allen, a former Unionist MP for West Belfast.

 

Knight also recruited John Bingham, the nephew of the Unionist MP for East Belfast, as one of his key officers at the outset of World War Two. Bingham was himself the subject of a recent biography, which reports that he postponed his retirement in the late 1960s in order to operate as an agent-runner in Northern Ireland.

 

The question arises as to what extent MI5's approach to loyalism during the Troubles was linked to its historic relationship with the British right. This is one issue that I want to pursue in a book which I am tentatively drafting (currently c.15,000 words) on British intelligence in the Irish Troubles.

 

I am hoping to use this Patreon page to support that work by posting exclusive extracts for patrons. So if you want to participate, through your support and feedback, in an investigation of the modern history of British intelligence in Ireland, please consider becoming a patron of this page.

 

As little as $1 a month could help support the cost of obtaining important books, travelling to archives, or photocopying useful titbits at the British Library. Who knows what we might find together!

Policy Exchange and Ireland

Originally posted on Patreon on 6 July 2017.

The London-based think-tank Policy Exchange this week published a paper by Ray Bassett,the former Irish ambassador to Canada, arguing that Ireland should follow the UK out of the European Union. This is a marginal viewpoint in Ireland and the intervention was widely criticised as a diversion from the real issues that Brexit poses for Anglo-Irish relations. It also prompted questions about Policy Exchange's agenda and opaque funding.

 

The latter issue is something that I and my Spinwatch colleagues Tom Mills and David Miller, examined in our 2011 pamphlet, The Cold War on British Muslims.

In relation to Ireland, I argued in a 2009 openDemocracy piece that key Policy Exchange figures such as  director Dean Godson were central to a distinctive neoconservative critique of the peace process which saw the Good Friday Agreement as a diminution of British greatness and a dangerous precedent for other conflicts around the world.

 

Others who shared this critique included Douglas Murray and Melanie Phillips, the latter of whom has been a notable defender of the Bassett paper.

 

The notion of a distinctively neoconservative analysis of Northern Ireland has been a controversial one in recent academic literature, but the fact that the most active promoters of Irexit have a record as strong critics of the Good Friday Agreement speaks volumes about their appreciation of the Irish national interest.

Could there be a progressive pact against Brexit in Northern Ireland?

The Irish News is this morning reporting that Sinn Féin and the SDLP have held talks at Stormont in the context of a possible electoral pact. This is something that Sinn Féin have canvassed at previous elections. In 2010, SF unilaterally stood down in favour of the SDLP in South Belfast. The SDLP held the seat, and Sinn Féin was able to squeeze the SDLP vote in Fermanagh & South Tyrone, winning by 4 votes. There were no such moves in 2015, when Sinn Fein lost Fermanagh & South Tyrone and the SDLP barely held on in South Belfast.

The SDLP has traditionally opposed pacts but the threat to South Belfast may be concentrating minds, as well as the threat to its other two seats, Foyle and South Down, where it was outpolled by Sinn Féin in this year's assembly election.

The existence of an anti-Brexit majority in Northern Ireland also creates the opportunity to cast any pact in non-sectarian progressive terms, although the Irish News report suggests that active participation by non-nationalist parties will be limited, there could be unilateral withdrawals in their favour. It might also be worthwhile for nationalist parties to consider stating that they will not use the result of this Westminster election as a mandate for a border poll, but rather to assert Northern Ireland's special circumstances in relation to the EU.

A progressive pact could affect the result in a number of seats, including Fermanagh and South Tyrone, South Belfast, East Belfast, Upper Bann and North Down. It might draw in a number of nationalist seats where the pro-Brexit threat is more notional but anti-Brexit feeling is very strong.

The dilemma for potential participants is whether the opportunity to reassert the strong anti-Brexit mandate from the referendum in Northern Ireland outweighs the likely effect of cannibalising their overall vote ahead of what could still conceivably be the third Assembly election in two years. Part of the reason that a unionist pact is likely now, is the lock-in effect of having to defend seats won with past pacts. The resulting effect on vote-share may have contributed to unionist losses in the Assembly elections, which reflect overall shares much more closely than those to Westminster.

With that caveat, here's a look at how a pact could play out in individual seats.

Belfast East

A progressive pact here would likely imply Sinn Féin and SDLP standing down in favour of Alliance. Alliance is unlikely to reciprocate and might not see nationalist support in unionist East Belfast as an unmixed blessing. Nevertheless, the move would be essential if a pact were to be seen as progressive rather than simply nationalist.

Alliance has a chance of regaining this seat with Naomi Long as candidate.

Belfast North

A pact here might give Sinn Fein a free run against Nigel Dodds of the DUP. The nationalist divide is, however, deeper in Belfast than in more rural seats, and Gerry Kelly might not be well-placed to hoover up all SDLP votes. 

Dodds built up a significant lead in 2015 thanks to a unionist pact, but the electoral danger to him would be real.

Belfast South

The logic of a pact here might see Sinn Féin standing down in favour of the SDLP as they did in 2010. The Green Party have said they will consider arrangements with parties that take their seats, which might be relevant here, if anywhere. A Green withdrawal would be a significant signal if Alliance refused to play a role. Its difficult to see a quid pro quo for this, although the Greens might benefit in vote-share from nationalists standing down in North Down.

A pact here might make it significantly easier for the SDLP to hold the seat.

Belfast West

As a safe Sinn Féin seat, there is little logic to a pact here, unless, it is a quid pro quo to focus resources somewhere else. Indeed, a pact might actually benefit pro-Brexit People Before Profit.

East Antrim

A safe unionist seat. It's questionable whether a single nationalist candidate or withdrawal in favour of Alliance would produce a result that justifies the loss in vote-share.

East Londonderry

A decade ago this might have been the place to give the SDLP a target. As it is Sinn Féin is the largest anti-Brexit party, but Gregory Campbell might still be just out of reach of any conceivable progressive coalition. Update: Independent unionist Claire Sugden has been suggested as an anti-Brexit candidate here.

Fermanagh & South Tyrone

A unionist pact barely won this seat from Sinn Féin in 2015. Winning this border constituency back would be a key goal for the party in an anti-Brexit pact, and it may do it anyway given the political tide seen in the 2017 Assembly election.

Foyle

The threat to the SDLP here is from Sinn Féin and not the pro-Brexit DUP, but a deal here in the wake of Sinn Féin's strong assembly result might be one of the attractions of a pact to the SDLP.

Lagan Valley

A safe unionist seat with alliance the strongest of the anti-Brexit parties. Arguably not competitive enough to justify a pact that might weaken participants overall vote shares in a future assembly election.

Mid Ulster

Sinn Féin has seen off unionist pacts here without help from the SDLP, but a unionist pact involving the DUP might still draw this seat into any negotiations.

Newry & Armagh

A unionist pact cut Sinn Fein's majority in half in 2015, so this seat could come into play in negotiations with the SDLP.

North Antrim

Ian Paisley Jr is probably beyond the reach of any progressive candidate here. 

North Down

As a seat held by an anti-Brexit unionist, the approach taken to this seat would be a key test of the anti-Brexit nature of any progressive pact. Sinn Féin has just started to make a serious effort here for the Assembly, with little prospect of short-term reward. The question of long-term growth v. progressive hegemony is perhaps the key to the prospects for a pact.

South Antrim

Danny Kinahane's pre-referendum opposition to Brexit makes a progressive pact hard to justify on anti-Brexit grounds, unless there is a unionist pact involving the DUP, which there may well be. The seat would likely remain unionist in either scenario.

South Down

The prospect of a unionist pact involving the DUP might also create grounds for a progressive pact, the bigger threat to the SDLP here is from Sinn Féin and has been seen off in the past with tactical unionist votes. A progressive pact would be a significant shift in strategy, but anti-Brexit feeling might create the grounds for it.

Strangford

As with Lagan Valley and South Antrim, this DUP seat is arguably not competitive enough to make a pact worthwhile.

Upper Bann

The DUP's tenure in this seat would arguably justify a progressive pact here, especially as the DUP's lead over Sinn Féin was less than the SDLP's total vote. However, a likely unionist pact would put the seat beyond reach.

West Tyrone

This is a safe Sinn Féin seat, although a unionist pact might make it competitive enough to justify a progressive response.

Brexit Terms and the Commons - The Numbers for Round Two

Back in October, I looked at the likely voting numbers in the Commons ahead of Labour's motion for a parliamentary debate on Brexit strategy. Despite a notional Government majority of 16, the Government elected to accept Keir Starmer's opposition motion on 12 October, suggesting that they feared defeat.

I have updated the figures below ahead of Labour's opposition day debate on 7 December, which will call for the Government to publish a Brexit plan before invoking Article 50 to leave the European Union.

Relevant developments include by-elections in Batley and Spen (A Labour hold that was vacant in October following the murder of Jo Cox) and Richmond Park ( A Lib Dem gain), and the resignation of Stephen Phillips. The upshot is that the Government's nominal majority has fallen by 3 votes since October, although Phillips was a likely rebel.

If reports of at least 20 Tory rebels are accurate, then even with the DUP, the Government might need the support of Labour Brexiters and there are a limited number of those if the rebellion is any larger. The Government will no doubt attempt to mollify rebel backbenchers, but a climbdown may be harder than in October as Labour's demands become more concrete.

What price a life? May's rhetoric and the MOD's reality

This post originally appeared on Spinwatch on 16 November 2016.

In the aftermath of the Brexit referendum, recent months have seen an increasingly chauvinistic tone in British politics. One aspect of this has been a concerted campaign against investigations of abuse by the Armed Forces. Conservative MPs have pressed Theresa May to curtail the activities of the Iraq Historic Allegations Team, prompting the Prime Minister to warn of 'an industry of vexatious allegations coming forward' in comments to journalists in New York in September. May's conference speech, a key turning point in the post-Brexit political mood, featured the promise that "we will never again – in any future conflict – let those activist, left-wing human rights lawyers harangue and harass the bravest of the brave – the men and women of Britain’s Armed Forces." Her words were backed up by the Ministry of Defence (MOD) the with the announcement that it would seek a derogation from the European Convention on Human Rights in future conflicts.

The irony is that these moves come at the very moment when new evidence suggests that the spectre of ambulance-chasing lawyers running rings around the MOD is almost the direct opposite of the reality in past conflicts. New light is being shed on MOD practices in the early years of the Northern Ireland Troubles in a trickle of documents obtained by the Pat Finucane Centre (PFC). They show that rather than being dragged to the courts, the MOD was often anxious to go down the legal route, an avenue in which the balance of power was very different from the one portrayed in the media, leaving bereaved families to settle for derisory sums, a fraction of the MOD's own private estimate of what was warranted.

The problem with the Quilliam Foundation

This post originally appeared on openDemocracyUK on 7 November 2016.

The Southern Poverty Law Centre (SPLC) has a long history of fighting racism, extending back to roots in the American Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, so its Field Guide to Anti-Muslim Extremists published last month, attracted widespread interest from those involved in combatting Islamophobia. Unfortunately, this latest publication has been controversial because it includes Maajid Nawaz, the co-founder of the UK counter-extremist think-tank Quilliam Foundation.

Nawaz has denounced this characterisation as 'Islam-splaining', describing himself as 'a brown, liberal, reform Muslim' and denouncing his critics as the 'regressive left', a charge echoed by Nick Cohen in the Spectator. Some elements of SPLC's critique of Nawaz were indeed questionable. It is not clear that the inclusion of some of his more personal peccadilloes shed any light on the charge of extremism. To accuse any self-identified Muslim of anti-Muslim extremism should always give one pause, given the risk of setting oneself up as arbitrator of others’ religious beliefs. There should be a high bar, and the scattershot nature of some of the SPLC's criticisms suggests that bar has not been met, even if other points do illustrate the profoundly illiberal impact of Quilliam's brand of counter-subversion.

This does not mean that a Muslim can never be said to be an anti-Muslim extremist. A good example is provided by a previous row involving Quilliam and a close British analogue of the SPLC, Hope Not Hate. In December last year, Hope Not Hate published a report on the so-called 'counterjihad movement', a self-identified coalition of hardline, far-right anti-Muslim groups, which spawned among other organisations, the English Defence League in Britain.

The Brexit bonanza for border smugglers

As Theresa May meets with representatives of the devolved governments of Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales today, one key issue she will have to consider is the status of the Irish border after Brexit. Despite Westminster's focus on controlling the movement of people, the movement of goods could be an equally thorny problem

The issue was highlighted recently in a parliamentary question from the Ulster Unionist MP for Fermanagh and South Tyrone:

Tom Elliott: I appreciate the Secretary of State’s point about an open border with the Republic of Ireland, given that four counties of the Republic of Ireland border my constituency, but how does he envisage stopping the smuggling that may take place after Brexit?

David Davis: That is a very good and difficult question. The simple truth is that we have to make a judgment, as is the case with all borders of that nature. Norway and Sweden have a good example of an open border, as do Canada and America. There are small-scale movements, but big-scale movements can be found and dealt with.

There may be good reasons for the Brexit Secretary's preference for an open border given the basic difficulty of mounting physical controls. This is what the British Army had to say on the matter in its review of Operation Banner, it's deployment to Northern Ireland during the Troubles: 

Brexicon - Defining the terms of negotiation

 On the BBC this morning Nick Clegg hit back at the 'remoaners' label for pro-Europeans, by labelling advocates of a hard Brexit 'breniers'. I wondered if I couldn't do a bit better. Apologies in advance.

Brexcellency: Non-EU trade representative prepared to offer favourable terms thanks to UK's improved post-Brexit negotiating position. Note irregular declension.

Brexceptionalism: Doctrine emphasising the over-riding importance of key trading relationships, such as those with Guernsey, the Isle of Man and the Cayman Islands. 

Brexchange: any currency transaction leaving one with fewer euros than one had pounds sterling.

Brexchequer: Middle English term, of Old French origin, designating David Davis' DExEU department.

Brexclave: A Japanese car plant in the north-east of England.

Brexcise: Tax primarily applicable to Mercedes cars, Italian sparkling wines and other articles of the same class.

Brexegesis: Scholarly methodology for the interpretation of referendum mandates.

Brexile: Member of an elite body of international businessmen upholding British sovereignty from a series of island outposts around the world.

Brexclaim: to estimate one's chances of success in negotiation.A general term not covering those specialised situations where the other side and/or objective circumstances are taken into account. Usually noted in EU-27 documents by a brexclamation mark.

Brexcluded middle: Logical principle by which there is either hard Brexit or no Brexit.

Brexecutive order: Officially preferred process for the implementation of Britain's departure for the European union.

Brexistentialism: Philosophical doctrine that Brexit means Brexit.

Brexogamy: The process of obtaining EU citizenship by marriage.

Brexemplary damages: Legal terminology for the negotiating position of the European Commission.

Brextremism: Doctrine aimed at deterring immigration by eliminating unnecessary economic activity.

Brexculpate: to uphold a broad public duty to make a success of Brexit.

 

Brexit terms and the Commons - a quick back of the envelope calc

Labour's new shadow Brexit Secretary Keir Starmer has today called for the House of Commons to vote on the opening terms for negotiating Britain's departure from the European Union. The Prime Minister has ruled this out. However, Ed Miliband has reportedly had talks with Conservative MPs who believe that Parliament should have more of a say. The Observer's Toby Helm has suggested that this could prevent 'Hard Brexit' and the departure of Britain from the Single Market.

Are there enough MPs willing to force a vote on the terms? Below is a quick first look at the numbers. I will try and update it as developments unfold.

New Post - 6 December 2016. Update ahead of Labour's opposition day debate.

Parliament should accept the Brexit mandate, but test its limits

It was pointed out before the EU referendum that having a popular vote to defend parliamentary sovereignty was something of a quixotic exercise. Perhaps the fact that they majority of the public voted differently to the majority of MPs suggests that they were less worried about the parliamentary bit and quite happy to assert British popular sovereignty.

The implications of this are now beginning to play out. The Telegraph reports that Theresa May intends to give notice of Britain's intent to leave the EU, under Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, without further reference to Parliament. To my unpractised eye, withdrawal from a treaty looks like the kind of thing that normally falls within the royal prerogative. Yet there remains the question of whether the Government could take such an irreversible step out of the EU without Parliament having repealed the European Communities Act. Might that not be one of the domestic constitutional requirements alluded to in Article 50 itself?

There are real dangers for continuity remain MPs in taking a stand on parliamentary sovereignty, if that means directly challenging the popular mandate for Brexit. Given that there is little sign of any favourable shift in public opinion since the referendum, it risks a backlash that would entrench the Brexit majority and make any prospect of winning a different mandate in the future even more distant than it is now.

A much better strategy is to focus on the limits of that mandate. The Leave campaign during the referendum deliberately avoided putting forward a single policy model for Brexit, which in itself suggests that any given model might be less popular than Brexit itself. Some Brexit campaigners, such as Dan Hannan, argued for a Swiss or Norwegian model that included freedom of movement, something that was anathema to many others.

It will be that the latter group included the great majority of Brexit voters, but the majority of a majority is not necessary itself a majority. Parliament therefore has every right to hold the Government to account over the type of relationship with Europe that it seeks. In this respect, today's statement from Labour's Barry Gardiner hit just the right note:

“Those commentators who argue that the Prime Minister should circumvent a parliamentary vote and use the Royal Prerogative to leave the EU should consider what constitutional precedent they seek to invoke.

“The logic of saying the Prime Minister can trigger Article 50 without first setting out to parliament the terms and basis upon which her government seeks to negotiate; indeed without even indicating the red lines she will seek to protect, would be to diminish parliament and assume the arrogant powers of a Tudor monarch.

"Parliament cannot be side-lined from the greatest constitutional change our country has debated in forty years.”

This amounts to a call for Parliament to have a say over the process, not a veto over the Brexit mandate. It might seem flawed, in that the Brexit process can only start when Article 50 has been invoked, but Theresa May has effectively conceded the point by saying that she will not trigger article 50 until a UK approach and objectives have been established. Parliament is surely entitled to satisfy itself that this is the case.

In this situation, a Corbyn-led Labour Party would need to raise its parliamentary game. But Owen Smith's strategy of calling for a second popular vote may not be ideal either. Launching a frontal assault on the Brexit mandate may be helpful to him in the Labour leadership contest, but it provides ammunition to populist euro-scepticism without actually strengthening Parliament's hand. If as Smith says, there is a anti-Brexit majority in Parliament, then the aim should be to challenge not the principle but the concrete implementation of Brexit, and to stand up for all those constituencies which the Leave campaign said would not be harmed by Brexit (workers, farmers, current foreign residents, Scotland, Northern Ireland, etc).

If the Government's plan failed to stand up to that scrutiny, it might be the Brexit camp which would be forced to seek a new popular mandate on a much more concrete prospectus. Euro-sceptics would undoubtedly feel aggrieved by such an outcome, but it would be the product of their strategy in the first referendum. Right now, they would probably win that renewed mandate, but it is impossible to know what the political landscape will look like in 2020.

Whether this strategy is realistic depends ultimately on whether that notional pro-European majority in Parliament still exists in the face of the referendum outcome and the disappearance of Cameron-Osborne patronage.

 

 

Labour's Scottish dilemma

The Herald is reporting that Jeremy Corbyn will rule out an electoral pact with the SNP during an upcoming visit to Scotland. Compass Chair Neal Lawson has criticised any such move in an article for Labourlist.

My thoughts from the Labourlist comments here:

A serious strategy for taking on the SNP might actually involve moving closer to them. Any strategy for winning in Scotland will have to involve a policy offer to the pro-independence voters who have left Labour for the SNP, and a willingness to work with the SNP at Westminster level if necessary is one way of signalling seriousness in that regard. Another might be accepting that the Scottish Parliament has the right to call an independence referendum.¹

At the moment, Labour has created a cordon sanitaire around the SNP that it doesn't have, for example, around the Liberal Democrats. That sends a signal that unionism trumps all other considerations, which is precisely the approach that has given a huge boost to the SNP and the Tories.

It is very difficult to see the basis of an electoral pact with the SNP, but the cordon sanitaire approach won't stop the Tories scaremongering given the objective possibility of a hung parliament. The only thing that might blunt that attack is a mature dialogue in the years before the election, which should probably be focused in the first instance on the fallout from Brexit, and effective opposition in the current Parliament.

¹One constructive thing Jeremy Corbyn could do is endorse the comment by Conservative Scottish Secretary David Mundell that "if the people of Scotland ultimately determine that they want to have another referendum there will be one". If all sides accept that position in practice, then a hung parliament, electoral pact or coalition at Westminster can make no difference to the timing of another referendum.

Colin Wallace on the HIA Inquiry

The Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry in Northern Ireland recently completed its hearings on abuse at Kincora Boys Home in the 1970s. The hearings were notable for the absence of a number of key witnesses, among them former British Army information officer Colin Wallace. In his absence, Wallace's evidence came in for strong criticism at the inquiry, as reported by the BBC last month.

I'm grateful to Ciarán MacAirt for passing on the following statement from Colin Wallace in response to the inquiry's criticisms. For what it's worth, I tend to agree with the late Liam Clarke that over the years, 'Mr Wallace has tended to gain credibility as his central allegations have been put under more and more scrutiny.' On the issue of Wallace's evidence at the Bloody Sunday Inquiry, I believe that my own research at the National Archives supports the veracity of his account.

Statement by Colin Wallace in response to comments allegedly made by counsel for the HIA Inquiry
7 July 2016
My attention has been drawn to the contents of BBC NI website dated 7 July 2016 and to the comments allegedly made by Mr Joseph Aiken, Counsel for the HIA Inquiry Some of the reported comments are either totally inaccurate, or so misleading that they must surely give rise to serious concern about the neutrality of the HIA Inquiry. I believe the Inquiry should correct those inaccuracies as a matter of urgency, bearing in mind that the true facts are on public record and, therefore, freely available it. Failure to do so will indicate that there is a deliberate attempt to mislead the public on these matters and must surely call into question the Inquiry’s ultimate findings. The Inquiry should not be allowed to be used as a platform to disseminate incorrect information.

According to the BBC website, Mr Joseph Aiken, Counsel for the Inquiry, “also outlined in detail how, in other cases, evidence from Mr Wallace had been rejected by the Saville Inquiry into Bloody Sunday and by the Barron Inquiry in the Republic of Ireland.” This statement is totally false. My evidence was not rejected by the Barron Inquiry.

Labour's future: The case for a progressive alliance

The debate over Labour's future has seen a number of interesting contributions in the last day or two, looking beyond the immediate struggle between Jeremy Corbyn and Owen Smith. This is perhaps related to the fact that the faultline over the leadership runs straight through the soft left, from which this spate of contributions has come.

This is most apparent in the case of Owen Jones, whose critique of Corbyn is being heavily parsed on Twitter. Other key contributions come from Paul Mason and Neal Lawson, both of whom raise the possibility of a progressive alliance between Labour and other left of centre parties. It may be significant that this idea was also canvassed by shadow defence secretary Clive Lewis in an interview with Jones.

I think Ellie-Mae O'Hagan may be right to suggest that Jones's piece is less about an opening to Owen Smith's leadership challenge, than a reflection on the consequences of a very likely Corbyn victory. It is worth noting Neal Lawson's observation that ' The likely reality of course is not just that Jeremy will win, but that his successor will come from the same vein within the party.' Owen Jones has in the past canvassed the scenario that this handover might take place before a general election. Such questions may well come to the fore within Labour if Smith is defeated.

As regards the strategy rather than the personalities, I've left the following thoughts on a progressive alliance in a comment on Paul Mason's post:

The idea of a cross-party progressive movement against a hard Brexit is an important one, but it might be a mistake to present it as a short-term answer to the question of a Corbynite election strategy. Starting off with debates around electoral pacts and PR, pushes it straight into the arena where partisan interests are strongest.

Surely, it’s better to keep the focus on policies where common interests are strongest. One, maybe old-fashioned, model might be a platform like Charter 88, bringing together multiple parties with organised civil society institutions, unions etc, as well as stigmergic networks.

The role of those institutions would be to give the coalition sufficient heft to ensure that the various opposition parties voted together enough to exploit any cracks in the Tory majority. In effect, we need an extra-parliamentary movement for a parliamentary opposition.

As much as we shouldn’t fetishize Westminster, Tory hegemony may actually be weaker there than in the media. Indeed, Osborne’s strength may have been in using the latter to bolster the former, cultivating the lobby to psych the PLP about legislative ‘traps’.

A few Government defeats might improve morale across the board and open up space for larger discussions. This maybe assumes that there won’t be an early election, but it’s hard to see an electoral alliance being negotiatied ahead of an autumn poll, in any case.

I've also storified some similar thoughts on Twitter:

Spinwatch: 'Saving Labour' linked to NHS contractor

My latest post at Spinwatch:

In the days following the mass resignation of Labour MPs from Jeremy Corbyn's shadow Cabinet, a number of prominent Labour figures expressed support for Saving Labour, a website dedicated to signing up party members in support for Corbyn's departure.

Despite the backing of luminaries from Yvette Cooper to Robert Harris and J.K. Rowling, the site's provenance is remarkably opaque. The Labourlist blog has described its origins as 'uncertain' despite a claim by the Copeland MP Jamie Reed that 'Saving Labour is an organic initiative, as far as I’m aware'. 

Peter Edwards reported: 

The founders of Saving Labour are unknown. LabourList has been handed the names of several well-known activists who it is believed are behind the project but they have denied involvement or declined to respond to efforts to contact them.

According to WHOIS data, the website appears to have been registered by an anonymous client, on 25 June 2016, two days after the EU referendum, and the day before Hilary Benn's dismissal as Shadow Foreign Secretary.

The website's privacy policy allows it to combine information collected on Labour supporters with data from commercial suppliers, and to share it with 'any member of our group, which means our subsidiaries, our ultimate holding company and its subsidiaries' as well as 'business partners, suppliers and sub-contractors'. The policy also states: 'the data controller is Saving Labour of International House, 24 Holborn Viaduct, London EC1A 2BN.' There are ten different companies registered at this address. However, it is also the home of a hot-desking club.