The Green Ribbon

Tributes paid to John Hume

Former SDLP leader John Hume died in the early hours of this morning, his family has announced. Here are some of the tributes to the architect of the Good Friday Agreement.

"John Hume, through his words, his astute diplomacy and willingness to listen... transformed and remodeled politics in Ireland and the search for peace, with personal bravery and leadership." President Michael D. Higgins.

It is impossible to properly express the scale and significance of John Hume’s life. He was one of the towering figures of Irish public life of the last century.  His vision and tenacity saved this country. We owe him and his wife Pat so much. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam. Taoiseach Micheál Martin. 

 Today, we mourn the passing of one of Ireland’s greatest ever sons. He ranks alongside O’Connell and Parnell in the pantheon of Ireland’s great leaders. He was a patriot, a peacemaker, a democrat, and a great great Derryman. RIP John Hume. Tanaiste Leo Varadkar.

 Sincere condolences to Pat & the wider Hume family. A giant in Irish nationalism, John left his unique mark in the House of Commons, Brussels & Washington. In our darkest days he recognised that violence was the wrong path & worked steadfastly to promote democratic politics. Northern Ireland First Minister Arlene Foster.

Working in the dark? Willie Carlin and British intelligence

Thatcher's Spy: My Life as an MI5 agent inside Sinn Féin, by Willie Carlin. Merrion Press, 2019. Amazon/Bookshop/Hive

This autobiography of Willie Carlin, a former British intelligence agent inside Sinn Fein, garnered significant press attention on publication last year. That's not surprising given that Carlin's career crossed paths with key figures from Martin McGuinness to future MI5 head Stella Rimington.

His most fateful encounter proved to be with Michael Bettaney, an MI5 agent-handler who later attempted to defect to the Soviet Union. Bettaney's imprisonment caused the end of Carlin's spying career, after his identity leaked to an IRA prisoner in England.
The story of such a figure is bound to be intriguing, but the spy memoir is a difficult genre to interpret. Spies, after all, survive by deception, and their autobiographies are classic vehicles for propaganda.

In this respect, it's troubling that some of Carlin's past statements, such as the claim that UDA killer Torrens Knight was an informer, are not dealt with in the book. Carlin states that some claims made in his name were posted by another former agent, Kevin Fulton, but it's not clear that this accounts for all such inconsistencies.

The most the reader can do is check the claims of such books against the other available evidence. Applying this test to Carlin leads to a natural enough conclusion

He appears somewhat credible when talking about his own experience as an agent, which tallies well with the picture of British intelligence in Derry provided by the Bloody Sunday Inquiry. He seems less reliable on the wider political agendas at work, though its not surprising that such matters would be opaque to an ordinary agent on the ground.

Carlin was born in 1948 into a Catholic family in the Waterside of Derry. His father had recently returned from wartime army service to a civilian job with the navy. The younger Carlin himself joined the army in the mid-1960s, several years before the Troubles gave such a decision a new and much more difficult significance.

In 1974, he was tapped by British intelligence to infiltrate Sinn Féin in his hometown, a task at which he worked until 1980. From 1981 until his exposure he worked for the British Army's Force Research Unit.

The timing fits well with the Bloody Sunday Inquiry, which revealed a number of agents active in Derry in the early 70s, most of whom were out of the picture by the time of Carlin's appearance. Like them, Carlin was handled by intelligence officers who were not resident in Northern Ireland, but travelled over occasionally from London. By the mid 70s, such officers would have come from the MI5/MI6 Irish Joint Section.

Carlin's poor relationship with the errant Bettaney completes an unimpressive picture of British intelligence during this period. If anything, it underlines why the one force Carlin refused to work with, the RUC Special Branch, was viewed as indispensible in Whitehall for so long.

It is jarring to realise that, having been sent to infiltrate Derry Sinn Féin in 1974, Carlin was still a local Waterside activist when he was questioned by the future high-flyer Stella Rimington on Martin McGuinness's thinking in 1980, and had yet to meet Mitchel McLaughlin at that point.

Ironically, after he began working for the army, Carlin started to gain access to the kind of political information the intelligence services were after. Riding the wave of mobilization prompted by the 1981 hunger strikes, he began to play a significant role in Sinn Féin's electoral and financing operations in Derry.

Carlin is very likely right about the influence of his reporting on British officials during this period, as the archives demonstrate their preoccupation with the growth of Sinn Fein in the early 1980s.

He is on murkier ground with his claim that British officials were working to push the republican movement towards politics. He recounts a meeting with a British official called 'Alec' who was keen to see Martin McGuinness elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly, and represented 'a school of thought in London who differed from the main body of government.'

There certainly were intelligence officers who were sympathetic to a political opening to Sinn Féin, such as Michael Oatley of MI6, but during the period covered by Carlin's career, MI6 gradually gave up its role in Northern Ireland agent-running, and there's no evidence of similar thinking within MI5 until much later.

Martin McGuinness was a key player in Oatley's back-channel contacts with the IRA and Carlin claims to have seen McGuinness outside a British intelligence safe house. Local sources have questioned Carlin's account of the relevant geography, and it would be surprising if the same facilities were being used for agent-running and back channel diplomacy with the IRA. Nevertheless, stranger things have happened, and it would certainly explain Michael Bettaney's reported preference for meeting Carlin in hotels.

One could be forgiven for thinking that another explanation is intended. Over the years, some of McGuinness's critics have promoted the suggestion that the late deputy first minister was himself an informer, and this theme contributed to some of the interest in Carlin's book.

Carlin himself disavows the informer claim, suggesting that his own sightings related to the back-channel. Yet his own theories about British manipulation of republicans are just as difficult to credit.

On the basis of his interaction with Alec, Carlin concluded that the Force Research Unit was actively working to promote the political growth of Sinn Féin. This is an explosive claim in its own right, given the role of FRU agents like Brian Nelson in setting up republicans for assassination.

This, however, is where Carlin fails the independent evidence test. Northern Ireland Office files show that all of the top intelligence officers during this period, the Directors and Co-ordinators of Intelligence (DCIs), were hostile to the growth of Sinn Féin. They were actively seeking ways to counter the activities on which Carlin was reporting, and one of them, Harold Doyne-Ditmas, argued for banning Sinn Féin outright.

Archival references to Doyne-Ditmas place him in Northern Ireland from January 1982 to December 1984. It's even possible that he was a victim of the same Bettaney leak as Carlin, as he had to flee his own home due to a security warning.

Crucially, he would have been in place at the time of Carlin's conversation with Alec, shortly before the 1982 Assembly elections. It's difficult to believe that the FRU could have been tasked to implement a political strategy without Doyne-Ditmas' involvement, given his place in the Northern Ireland intelligence hierarchy.

Even during the periods when Michael Oatley was talking to republicans in the mid-1970s and again, briefly, during the hunger strikes, the evidence suggests that MI5 agent-runners were not sympathetic to his approach. The first-known exception is John Deverell, who worked with Oatley on Middle East terrorism and became DCI in the late 1980s, at a time when the peace process was just beginning.

Deverell is probably the 'John' who Carlin met when he was resettled in Wales in 1986. Although, he was already a senior MI5 officer during Carlin's active career, there is no evidence he had adopted the Oatley approach at that point.

None of this means that Carlin was lying about his conversation with Alec, or that Alec was lying when he told him about a dissenting view within British intelligence.

However, Carlin's account makes clear it was his own inference that the dissenters were in control of FRU strategy. That conclusion was mistaken, but it was not necessarily in his handlers' interests to disabuse him of the error.

Those handlers apparently viewed Carlin as being dangerously republican-minded. His own self-portrayal suggests a moderate nationalist with an ambivalent attitude towards his work with Sinn Féin. Would a competent agent-runner have disabused their agent of a belief that reinforced his motivations, even if that belief was false?

After all, if we are to consider the hidden hand of intelligence capable of controlling the peace process before the fact, mustn't we also concede the simpler hypothesis that it is capable of manipulating its own agents?

Carlin was undoubtedly a significant piece of the intelligence jigsaw in the early 1980s, but it would be unwise to infer too much about the bigger picture from his story.

Sinn Féin tops poll in the Irish general election

If you're following the Irish general election count today, I recommend Newstalk for discussion and RTE for results.

 

Sinn Féin look to have won the popular vote, but a lack of candidates means they may not overtake Fianna Fail and Fine Gael on seats. It's too early to say whether they will end up in government, or whether FF and FG will be forced into a new deal with each other.

 

Nevertheless, some Brexit watchers are already predicting Sinn Féin's increased prominence will provide rhetorical ammunition for British Conservatives during negotiations over the future relationship between Britain and the EU.

 

The risk in that reaction is that it could fuel Sinn Fein in the North, helping it to overtake the DUP as the largest party. SF had mixed results at the last Westminster election, and its abstentionist position was a particular factor in its loss of a seat in Derry to the SDLP.

 

Now, however, SF is close to a level of power that no other party in Northern Ireland can aspire to, transcending even the influence exercised by the DUP in the last Westminster parliament. Being in government on both sides of the border has been SF's long term aim since the beginning of the peace process three decades ago. After this election, that prospect looks closer than ever.

 

The return of a functioning Stormont executive means that the first meeting of the North South Ministerial Council since 2016 should be in prospect. At this moment, it's possible Sinn Féin ministers could be on both sides of the table.

Johnson's Brexit victory leaves huge uncertainty for Northern Ireland and Scotland

After a massively consequential election on 12 December, the UK is now pretty certain to leave the EU within two months. Yet huge uncertainty remains about the UK's future outside the bloc.

The lack of debate over Brexit during the election leaves Johnson with freedom to go far a hard Brexit or pivot to a closer relationship if he chooses. That choice has significant implications for the future of Northern Ireland.

A hard Brexit will mean a customs border with Great Britain, pushing the North towards a deeper All-Ireland economic relationship. A closer relationship will ameliorate those requirements.

Jeremy Corbyn - The DUP connection

The DUP could talk to Labour in a hung Parliament, but only if it was led by someone other than Jeremy Corbyn, Arlene Foster suggested at the weekend.

However, there are signs that some in the DUP take a more nuanced view. The Belfast Telegraph's political editor Suzanne Breen noted that East Antrim MP Sammy Wilson had spoken favourably of Corbyn in an interview with her in 2016.

Mr Wilson told the Belfast Telegraph: “There is a decency and an  honesty about Jeremy Corbyn that I admire. His views on Northern Ireland  and his past associations with Sinn Fein — at a time when the IRA’s  murderous campaign was in full swing — makes me very angry.

“But, on a personal level, I find Jeremy a lovely man. He would never walk past you in the corridor in the House of Commons without saying,  ‘Hello, how are you?’ He has time for people. He’s a true gentleman.”

Labour's manifesto on Northern Ireland could pose a dilemma for the DUP

Below is the key Northern Ireland passage from the constitutional section of Labour's newly-published manifesto. What's most interesting is the commitment to avoid a regulatory border in the Irish Sea as well as at the land frontier. 

This is in sharp contrast to the Conservatives' Brexit deal, which would create a sea border, something which Boris Johnson sought to obfuscate during this week's television debate.

The DUP's Jeffrey Donaldson has said that his party could still have leverage against this deal if the Tories don't win a large majority. That, however, ignores two things. 

Firstly, all Conservative candidates have signed a pledge to back Boris's Brexit deal as it stands. If Johnson wins an overall majority, he wll have the strongest possible mandate for that deal.

Secondly, Johnson also has leverage in that time pressure will favour his 'oven-ready' deal over an attempt at renegotiation. Indeed, even if he loses seats that factor may still give the deal a chance as long as the Conservatives remain in office.

The DUP's most realistic route to preventing an Irish Sea border is supporting an opposition majority for an alternative Prime Minister. If they can't commit to that course, there's a strong argument that the re-election of the DUP's Nigel Dodds in North Belfast would be functionally equivalent to electing Sinn Fein's abstentionist John Finucane in terms of preventing a sea border going through the Commons.

 Labour manifesto - constitutional issues - Northern Ireland 

The Good Friday Agreement and long-term peace in Northern Ireland is one of the great achievements of Labour in government. Therefore, as a priority, Labour will work quickly and tirelessly to secure the return of a genuine power-sharing government in Northern Ireland. The devolved power-sharing institutions have not been running in Stormont for over 1,000 days. 

During this period people have suffered in the face of a funding crisis as austerity continues to damage public services, which Labour will resolve. Working with a new assembly and power-sharing government, Labour will invest an extra £1.9 billion to end austerity and rebuild public services in Northern Ireland.

Women in Northern Ireland should have access to abortions in Northern Ireland. A Labour government will fully implement new laws on equal marriage in Northern Ireland so that same-sex couples are no longer treated as second-class citizens. 

We will work with all major parties in Northern Ireland to provide a good platform for the restoration of devolution alongside bringing forward and implementing  a Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland as outlined in the Good Friday Agreement.A Labour government will also protect Northern Ireland and its people in any future Brexit outcome by ensuring that there is no return to a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland or the creation of a regulatory border down the Irish Sea.

Election 2019 - Northern Ireland seats

Some pointers on the key parties and seats in Northern Ireland, where the 2019 elections raise a number of key questions: 

Will unionist voters stick with the DUP in the wake of Boris Johnson's Brexit deal, or punish its MPs for sustaining Johnson's Government? Can the UUP benefit from their rivals discomfiture, or are they inextricably bound together in the cause of unionist unity? Could it be the emerging anti-Brexit force of Alliance which profits instead? 

Will the tribulations of Brexit reinforce nationalists' 2017 decision to opt for Sinn Fein, a party focused on Dublin and Brussels rather than Westminster, or lead them to reconsider in favour of the SDLP?

Election 2019 - useful sites

A few sites worth keeping an eye on in the coming weeks of the UK general election campaign:

 

Democratic Dashboard - If you are a UK resident this is a good place to find tailored information on the elections in your area.

UK General Election 2019 poll tracker - from the Guardian.

UK Polling Report - blog by Anthony Wells of YouGov.

Election Polling - useful particularly for its lists of the marginal seats battlegrounds.

Electoral Calculus - analysis site by Martin Baxter with a lot of valuable data, though its seat calculator is controversial. Best treated as 'a bit of fun' in the spirit of John Snow.

Region by Region Guide - a short regional overview (excluding Northern Ireland) from Chaminda Jayanetti at Politics.co.uk

Northern Ireland Elections - excellent reference site by Nicholas Whyte.

Willie Carlin, MI5 agent-running and clandestine diplomacy in Northern Ireland

An intriguing new source on intelligence operations in Northern Ireland emerged this month with the publication of Thatcher's Spy by Willie Carlin, an MI5 agent who was active in Sinn Féin in Derry in the 1980s.

I haven't yet read the book, but Carlin's interview with Sam McBride of the News Letter provoked some thoughts which I will try to follow up when I can get hold of a copy. I was particularly struck by this passage on Carlin's role in Martin McGuinness's election to the Northern Ireland Assembly in 1982.

I relayed back to my new handlers how Martin had been reluctant to  stand, but Mitchel was working behind the scenes with Gerry Adams, Tom Hartley and others to bring McGuinness around and convince him.”

He  said that it became clear that the British agencies were keen to  facilitate – not stop – Mr McGuinness’s rise through the republican  ranks and then his move into politics. 

“A few days before the  election I had a routine meeting at Ebrington Barracks with my contact John. During the meeting he introduced me to a man named Alec from London (who was not military).

“He was very interested in how I  thought Sinn Féin would do at the election and was absolutely over the  moon when I told him of our plan to get Martin elected. Alec made it  clear to me that it was imperative that ‘Martin McGuinness gets elected  to the Northern Ireland Assembly’.

I have long been suspicious of suggestions that the political growth of Sinn Féin and hence the peace process was a result of intelligence manipulation, for reasons which I outlined in a 2012 openDemocracy article, The Conspiracy Theory of the Peace Process is a Dangerous Myth.

Brexit round-up: Northern Ireland deal comes back into focus

In a deep political crisis, all possible solutions come under scrutiny until a way out emerges.  After months in which the British government has rejected the EU's demand for a Northern Ireland backstop, it's clear that negotiations are moving towards detailed consideration of Northern Ireland specific arrangements. Here are a few of the latest developments:

• British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is reported to be considering a Northern Ireland  'special economic zone' as part of a deal - George Parker, Financial Times.
• No. 10 is reportedly split between a Dominic Cummings-led No Deal faction, and those who want an agreement - Jenni Russell, The Times.
• The Taoiseach has said that he will not agree to a return to direct rule in Northern Ireland in the event of a no deal Brexit - Shane Harrison, BBC. 
• DUP leader Arlene Foster met the Taoiseach on Thursday to discuss Brexit and the restoration of the Northern Ireland Executive - Gavin Reilly, Newstalk.
• Foster has said that the DUP could accept Northern Ireland specific arrangements that are approved by the North's politicians, and do not affect the constitutional position - Pat Leahy, Irish Times.
• The Times' Brussels correspondent, Bruno Waterfield reports that the UK government is starting to get into the detail of the EU's demands on VAT administration in Northern Ireland.
• There are, however, doubts about how substantive the UK's shift is. Johnson's latest letter to European Council president Donald Tusk suggests he is still seeking to push the Northern Ireland issue from the Withdrawal Agreement to the future relationship - Peter Foster, Telegraph.
• Jonathan Lis argues that Johnson does not have the time or political space to do a Northern Ireland backstop deal.

It's not surprising that Johnson is taking another look at a Northern Ireland deal. It is his best chance to take a hard Brexit deal into an early election. The imminence of that election, thanks to the loss of his majority, has weakened the DUP's hand.

The obstacles, however, are formidable, and it is not clear that Johnson has the will to take them on, or that he could unite the Eurosceptic right behind him if he did. This is partly because such a deal would be repugnant to conservative unionist instincts, but also because it would make the union a vector of European influence in Britain.

It is not at all clear that there is a conservative eurosceptic coalition that can survive the recognition that Britain's Northern Ireland connection is inevitably a connection, through Ireland, to Europe.

Fag-packet politics - The numbers for no-deal legislation

A quick look at the numbers for a parliamentary move to block no deal, expected tomorrow. My conclusion is that if Tory rebels turn out in the numbers anticipated, the Government will need a substantial Labour rebellion to stave off defeat. The situation is fluid, but there doesn't seem to be much sign of that so far. It's no wonder that the Government is resorting to threats of deselections and an early election.

The figures below are very much a guesstimate, but they give an idea of the factors in play.

Former Crucial Academy owner arrested days after Johnny Mercer joins board

We now have a definite answer to the question raised in my previous post: is Johnny Mercer a non-executive director at Crucial Academy? Mercer was appointed as a director on 3 June 2019.

Curiously, this is nine months after he registered the £85,000 a year directorship with the Commons authorities, and a month after I queried why this directorship didn't appear in Companies House filings.

Companies House issued the following response when I went back to them after the appointment:

 We can confirm the company has notified the registrar of Mr Mercer’s  appointment as a director within 14 days of the date of his appointment, as the Law requires.

The company has made contact with us regarding this matter and confirmed  the appointment of Mr Mercer has been registered with Companies House.

Our position regarding Mr Mercer’s appointment is that as notification  of his appointment as director of the company on 3 June 2019 has been made and the public register now reflects the appointment, the matter is  concluded. As such, no determination has been made about late or inaccurate filings in relation to the appointment, if some evidence to the contrary comes to light Companies House would make further enquiries of the company.  

There still remains the question of whether Mr Mercer's entry in the Register of Members' Interests was accurate in describing him as a non-executive director in the nine months prior to 3 June, something I have taken up with the Commissioner for Parliamentary Standards.

In any case, now that Mercer is a statutory director he ought to be in a stronger position to back-up his defence of his Crucial Academy salary - which the BBC has alleged to be funded by the failed London Capital and Finance (LFC) bond scheme. 

The LCF investigation last week led to the arrest of Paul Careless, who still had a controlling interest in Crucial Academy's parent company when Mercer declared his interest in September, before it  was sold to Mercer's fellow director Neil Williams in April.

Is Johnny Mercer actually a non-exec at Crucial Academy?

The Conservative MP for Plymouth Moor View has been in the news a lot lately as a key backbench hold-out on Theresa May's Withdrawal Agreement, one who has accused the Tory whips of seeking to dig up dirt on him in order to secure his vote.

However, a BBC story on Wednesday suggests that he does face issues which merit substantive scrutiny.

MP Johnny Mercer's salary funded by failed bond scheme marketing agent

By Chris Quevatre & Tom Palmer

A company that marketed a failed bond scheme that lost savers £236m has been funding an MP's private salary.

Johnny Mercer receives £85,000 from Crucial Academy, a company ultimately funded by Surge Financial Limited.

Surge Financial Limited took 25% commission for marketing bonds by London Capital and Finance (LCF), which is now in administration.

Mr Mercer - who is facing calls from investors to quit as an MP - said he had done nothing wrong.

The Conservative MP for Plymouth Moor View is a non-executive director of Crucial Academy, which trains military veterans and aims to find them employment. (Full story)

One intriguing issue here is the status of Mercer's non-executive directorship. Here's the declaration that Mercer made last year to the Commons Register of Member's Interests:

 From 14 Sept 2018 until further notice, Non-executive Director of Crucial Academy Ltd, One Canada Square, Canary Wharf, London E14 5AB, for which I will receive £85,000 per annum. Hours: 20 hrs a month. (Registered 18 September 2018).

Mercer also refers in his response to the BBC to 'working as a non-executive director of Crucial Academy.'

Yet, as Alex Harrowell points out, it's difficult to find a record of this directorship at Companies House. It doesn't seem to appear on the Crucial Academy entry or on the page where Mercer's own consultancy is listed. While there may be a valid explanation, at first sight, it does raise questions about Mercer's judgement and what exactly his role was.

Brexit Party MEP candidate 's business boosted by cheap UK assets and sterling weakness

The Brexit Party has today announced property developer Ben Habib as a candidate for the European elections. At the launch event, Habib argued for keeping a no deal Brexit on the table.

Habib's involvement is an intriguing data point for those who think a influential fraction of Brexit supporters are driven by an appetite for cheap assets. 

Here's how his views were reported after the referendum in 2016: 

There are company bosses fearful of the prospects posed by Brexit.

Ben Habib, chief executive at commercial property investor and fund manager First Property Group PLC isn't one of them.

He sees market instability after the UK vote to leave the EU as a big opportunity for a small firm like First Property, and means (for currency reasons) an immediate injection of profits in the short term and later, a chance to buy more UK assets at cheaper prices. [ProactiveInvestors]

The weakness of sterling after the referendum was a particular boon to First Property because of the repatriation of euro-denominated profits from Polish and Romanian investments.

As recently as February, the Investors Champion podcast reported that First Property 'is currently sitting on cash so that it is ready to buy assets if the UK property market crashes in the wake of a no deal Brexit.'

No Deal would no doubt mean more cheap assets, and further sterling weakness, precisely because of its impact on the wider economy. It's fair to ask whether the interests of hard Brexit backers like Habib, are aligned with those of the wider British public.

 

Supreme Court strikes down Finucane inquiry

The UK Supreme Court has today ruled that the British Government has failed to meet its obligation to hold a human rights compliant inquiry into the 1989 murder of solicitor Pat Finucane. The court ruled that the De Silva review, which established substantial state collusion in the killing, did not meet this test because it was unable to cross-examine witnesses.

Some early press reports nevertheless interpreted the ruling as a defeat for the Finucane family because the court declined to directly order a new public inquiry. However, in a statement, the family's solicitors said the Government would now be left with no alternative but to order a new inquiry, to meet it's obligations under Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The women picking up the pieces of Northern Ireland politics

Picture by Adam Jogee.

The men have left Northern Ireland politics in a mess, with Brexit and a stalled assembly, and it’s the women who have been left to sort it out. That was the response of leading women politicians from the North to a cheeky audience member at Hammersmith Irish Centre on Friday, who argued that a female Northern Ireland Secretary and female party leaders in the DUP, Sinn Fein and Alliance were presiding over political crisis.

If there was unity on that point however, there were significant differences on the way forward, notably on the prospects for the restoration of the Stormont Executive in the shadow of Brexit.

The DCIs: Britain’s intelligence chiefs in the Northern Ireland Troubles (Working Draft)

The new year is a good time to think about the best way of using my Patreon. While some of the posts there give a good flavour of my research, I've been thinking for some time about following the example of writers like Kevin Carson, who post the full working draft of their books online.

Over the past year, I have narrowed the focus of my draft book to tell the story of British intelligence in Ireland through profiles of individual intelligence chiefs. I've now reached the point where I have a full timeline of office-holders for the period I want to cover, and full profiles of some of them.

Be warned, however, that there is a lot of work still to do, and some parts of the text are a mass of unassimilated notes, while others still need to be fully referenced. At the moment, the profiles on Herbert, Rowley, Cradock, Doyne-Ditmas, and Deverell are most complete. There is a lot of unassimiliated material in relation to Eastwood, Payne, and Ranson. There is relatively little at the moment in relation to Parker, Ferneyhough and Knight, but I have made some progress here in recent months and should be able to update these shortly.

In every case, I have been able to link names appearing in Northern Ireland Office files, to those of known intelligence officers in other sources, most importantly the 1980s MI5 order of battle included in Stephen Dorril's The Silent Conspiracy.

With all of the above caveats, the current draft is now avallable to my Patreon subscribers here. Look out for future updates.

Will Stakeknife Inquiry defy the Stalker precedent?

Chief Constable Jon Boutcher, of Bedfordshire Police, said this week that he has evidence to bring a number of prosecutions in relation to the activities of the alleged British Army agent inside the IRA known as 'Stakeknife'.

According to the BBC, the Stakeknife investigation, Operation Kenova, could recommend the prosecution of members of the IRA, MI5 and the Army's Force Research Unit.

It's worth recalling that this wouldn't be the first time that a police investigation had recommended prosecutions of MI5 officers in Northern Ireland.

Military Reaction Forces, Mobile Reaction Forces and 'FRED' Force

Researcher Ciarán MacAirt has done sterling work in the past few years in dismantling the official story in relation to the 1971 McGurks Bar bombing in North Belfast, an attack which security forces claimed at the time was an IRA own goal.

Ciarán's latest research at Paper Trail reveals that the British Army's undercover Military Reaction Force was active in the area of the bombing:

Paper Trail can now prove that the MRF operated with the resident 2nd Battalion Royal Regiment of Fusiliers (2RRF) which attended the scene of the massacre in its immediate aftermath. The archives evidence, in fact, that the MRF was active in the area the day and night before the attack but is absent from 39 Brigade Operations Logs on the day of the bombing.

Therefore, the families have been correct all along to query where was the MRF when their loved ones were killed as they have questioned whether its operatives were involved either directly or through agents it ran within the UVF paramilitary bomb team. Successive investigations by the British state up to the present day have either failed to locate the MRF in North Belfast at this time or have hidden the information from the families.

The mention of agents in the UVF refers to the Army's practice of this time of running agents recruited from paramilitary organisations, known as 'turned terrorists' or 'Freds'. Rory Cormac's recent book on British covert action, Disrupt and Deny, argues that the Freds were run separately from the MRF, but were taken over by its successor organisation, the Special Reconnaissance Unit (SRU) formed in late 1972.

When I put this conclusion to Margaret Urwin, author of a pamphlet on the MRF and SRU, she was sceptical, pointing out that it was a leak from 'Freds' that led to the IRA targeting the MRF in the Four Square Laundry incident, one of several controversial episodes that contributed to the MRF's replacement by the SRU.

Ciarán took a similar view, tweeting a document in which then MOD Minister Ian Gilmour referred directly to a 'turned terrorist' within the MRF.

I decided to go back to Cormac's source which he very kindly confirmed was a file in the National Archives. The relevant document is a minute of 17 November 1972, from the Chief of the General Staff, Sir Michael Carver to the Defence Secretary Lord Carrington, entitled Special Reconnaissance Squadron - Northern Ireland.

The opening paragraphs read as follows:

You are aware of the request made by HQ Northern Ireland for an organisation to command and control what have been called 'FRED' force and 'Mobile Reaction Forces' both of which have been employed for surveillance patrols, consisting of soldiers in plain clothes, in some cases also being used to effect arrests.

2. You will recall that, after the 4 Square Laundry incident, I issued orders, on your instructions, governing the employment of soldiers in plain clothes. It was recognised then that these two forms of plain clothes patrol needed to be brought under closer, ore coordinated and more centralised control; that the soldiers employed on them should be more specifically trained both for the task and for their personal security; and that their administration should be regularised.

On the face of it, this justifies Cormac's statement that 'Freds and MRF's were separate plain-clothes units lacking proper co-ordination', but there is still the question of how this can be reconciled with the other evidence.

My guess is as follows:

A. There were two distinct types of team conducting separate patrols, army plain-clothes soldiers and 'Freds.'

B. There was a single unit within each of the three army brigades in Northern Ireland responsible for both types of team.

One might posit that the army patrols at A. were Mobile Reaction Forces and the units at B were Military Reaction Forces, but this is probably to neat a conclusion. The picture of wheels within wheels and MRFs within MRFs may owe as much to the cowboy atmosphere of the time as to army security.

Perhaps the most interesting implication of Carver's statement is that FRED force was operating its own plainclothes patrols. This doesn't sound like a description of an informant in the back of an armoured car, and might even be taken to suggest that Freds were not just individual agents but operating in groups. Accounts such as Martin Dillon's The Dirty War have suggested that Freds did not associate freely with each other, although Dillon notes that one Fred, Seamus Wright was able to identify another, Kevin McKee, to the IRA, which secretly killed and buried both men.

The question of what form FRED force patrols took leads us back to the issues raised by Ciarán MacAirt . Was FRED Force part of the MRF activity in North Belfast around the time of the McGurk's Bar bombing?

Update 17/12/18: Margaret Urwin of Justice for the Forgotten suggests that simplest explanation for FRED force patrols is that individual Freds were being escorted by plainclothes soldiers in unmarked cars.

Tory MP declarations and the outlook for tonight's no confidence vote in Theresa May

Election Maps UK has a crowdsourced list of declarations by Tory MPs of how they will vote in tonight's vote of confidence on Theresa May's leadership of the Party. This should be taken with a pinch of salt, as the vote itself with a secret ballot. It's currently running 170-80 in May's favour. This would see her surviving, but politically wounded, the more so if her opponents can get towards the 100 mark.

It would take a simple majority of Tory MPs to defeat May and see nominations for the leadership opened. If more than one candidate gets sufficent votes, the contest would go to the Conservative Party in the country, the first time a Prime Minister has been chosen in this way. This would greatly increase chances of a new leader prepared to opt for a 'No Deal' Brexit over Theresa May's Withdrawal Agreement. This would put pressure on the Grieve/Soubry wing of moderate Brexit-critical MPs to find some way of avoiding a No Deal outcome, potentially risking the Government's majority.

Conversely, in the more likely event that May wins, the Government's majority is still at risk. The DUP will continue to oppose the Withdrawal Deal, but may nevertheless choose not to support a vote of no confidence in the Government. This political paralysis would leave the UK on course for a No Deal Brexit by default.

Thus, all paths at the moment seem to lead to new pressure on moderate Tories to find a way to avoid a deal. Their key strategist, Dominic Grieve, has much to think about.

In coming weeks, however, there are also risks for the DUP,  if opposition MPs start to cave in to Theresa May's position rather than risk No Deal. If the backstop is forced on them, the DUP may feel that they can tell their supporters they have done all they could, but would that be true if they have been sustaining the Government in the meantime? Labour's unionist-friendly rhetoric of last week may have been intended to raise that question.