Showing posts with label Sinn Fein & British monarchs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sinn Fein & British monarchs. Show all posts
Gearóid Ó Loingsigh ☭ writing in Socialist Democracy on 6-May-2023 mocks the deference shown to British royalty. 

On May 6th an anachronistic, atavistic ceremony was held for all the world to see. 

A man whose only merit in life is to have been born into right family was crowned King Charles III. He is of no merit. He wouldn’t even be king had his great uncle not ran away with an American divorcee. Had the royals been as tolerant of his relationship as they were of Charles’ the blood line would be different. That in itself tells you everything you need to know about his merit. None. But then royal families themselves have no merit, ever, anywhere.

Clown show
From the word go, the great and the good were rushing to get seats to the invite only privileged soiree, held at the expense of those who cannot pay their electricity bills. Photos abound of those getting to meet him, smiling as they did so. Amongst the invitees are a rake of kings, crown princes and others from head chopping, hand chopping, women raping and torturing regimes, such as Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Oman. Keir Starmer with his Sir in front of his name was all full of praise, the Labour Party was proud to say God Save the King. \

And in the midst of it, Alex Maskey and Michelle O’ Neill grinning like two over fed Cheshire cats. Instead of standing with British republicans who seek to abolish the monarchy, they threw their lot in with royalty, reaction and Loyalism. Even some conservative Irish politicians have been better on this than Sinn Féin, with one saying he wouldn’t go to the back door of his house to see it.(1) Social media has been full of memes and comments about the occasion, many predictably with quotes from James Connolly, who resolutely opposed the monarchy at all times. But perhaps one of the best quotes is from Keir Hardie, the founder of the Labour Party:

If we are for the Queen [Victoria] we are not for her subjects. The throne represents the power of caste – class rule. Round the throne gather the unwholesome parasites who cling to the system which lends itself to their disordered condition. The toady who crawls through the mire of self-abasement to enable him to bask in the smile of royalty is the victim of a diseased organism.

And yet Sinn Féin dragged themselves through a swamp of slime to bask in Chuck’s smile. The Communist Party of Ireland hailed them as brave for doing so and putting politics aside,(2) whilst simultaneously speaking out both sides of their mouths and expressing their solidarity with those arrested. (3) 

Lost in the discussion is any sense of what the royals are. And there is likely to be less discussion of it, or at least what happens will be curtailed even more. The British state brought forward the implementation of new police powers and demonstrators were arrested before they even got to demonstrate.(4) Sinn Féin instead of standing by these republican protestors was stuffing itself on the metaphorical and literal gravy train of the pomp and pageantry of the day. A pageant with all the precision, show and ideological message and propaganda worthy of a Nuremberg rally in other times, without the classy uniforms designed by Hugo Boss, of course.

New thought crime legislation is in place and in the south of Ireland it has passed the first stage in the Dáil and is now being discussed at the Seanad with all its provisions for thought crime. People can be arrested for having material on their computer that could be used for incitement to hatred. What hatred is, is not specified. Could calling for the abolition of the British monarchy be a hate crime? Yes, it could. In the modern world of identity politics Loyalists and even British royalists include the parasites within the world vision, their cosmo-vision as trendy types like to say when talking of the “exotic” cultures they pretend to value. Joking about a French or even Cromwellian solution to the monarchy could be construed as such, though my personal real preference is for them to be given jobs at Sainsbury’s as Arthur Scargill once suggested.

The laws are there to make sure we don’t question our betters; the coronation is the remind us that our betters exist and we should bow to them. There is no putting politics aside and representing all as Sinn Féin claim, though their message is consistent with the Good Friday Agreement when, politics was defined as an immutable identity and all the identities were worthy of respect, no matter how politically reactionary they were. The idea of representing everyone is reactionary nonsense. After the civil rights campaign in the US, black politicians did not run around claiming to also represent the KKK, they understood that there are people you don’t, can’t and shouldn’t claim to represent. But then Orange sectarianism itself has been dressed up as a quaint cultural fest and Michelle O’Neill marks the mass slaughter of the European working class that was WW I, when the cousins George V, Kaiser Wilhelm II and the Russian Tsar Nicholas II, respective countries found themselves at war and millions died for king and country.

The coronation marks a new low in the decline of critical thinking and a rightward shift by former radicals. It is also part of the rise in identity politics. Royalty is another identity we are meant to take seriously, lest we offend someone, somewhere or somezee, somewhere. It is an act of mass propaganda in favour of a political set up and paid for by those that set up aims to keep in their place, on the dole, at food banks, with worsening working conditions, should they even have a job. It is in essence unadulterated raw sewage.

Notes

(1) MSM (05/05/2023) I wouldn’t go to the back door to see it – Irish politicians have their say on coronation of Britain’s King Charles. Maeve McTaggart

(2) See Socialist Voice.

(3) See here.

(4) The Guardian (06/05/2023) Head of UK’s leading anti-monarchy group arrested at coronation protest. Daniel Boffey.

⏩ Gearóid Ó Loingsigh is a political and human rights activist in Latin America.

King Chuck

Dr John Coulter ✍ With today being an official bank holiday to mark the Coronation of King Charles III over the weekend, the sight of representatives of the Provisional IRA’s political apologist, Sinn Fein, at the key Royal ceremony must have raised quite a few eyebrows, not least in the British and Westminster establishments.

Has Sinn Fein returned to its ‘Royalist’ roots of 1905 when its founders campaigned for dominion status for Ireland? But let’s take a major dose of political medicine - Sinn Fein’s presence at the Coronation is nothing short of a well choreographic piece of electioneering spin ahead of the 18 May local council elections in Northern Ireland.

In short, Sinn Fein politicians ‘playing curtsey’ to King Charles III is a three-pronged canvassing stunt. Having overtaken the DUP at Stormont by two seats after the last Assembly election, Sinn Fein is planning a ‘double whammy’ over the Paisley-founded party by pushing the DUP into second place again in terms of councillors elected across Northern Ireland’s 11 councils.

In 2019, the DUP emerged on top with 122 elected councillors compared to Sinn Fein’s tally of 105. But to beat the DUP on 18 May, Sinn Fein needs to eat even more into the electorally lucrative Catholic upper middle class and moderate nationalist lobby, which traditionally was the bastion of the SDLP.

Sinn Fein managed to overtake the SDLP in Stormont polls by eating into the SDLP’s traditional lower middle class Catholic vote, whilst at the same time keeping Sinn Fein’s own traditional working class republican heartlands on board - a tactic the Unionist parties would do well to adopt in terms of middle class Unionism’s links to working class Loyalism!

By making sure there is plenty of footage and photos of Sinn Fein elected representatives at the Coronation, the republican party can fuel the perception it is no longer the blunt apologist of the IRA, but is a genuinely democratic nationalist party - basically, the old Irish Independence Party of the 1970s rebranded.

In strategy terms, the long-war tactic of the Armalite in one hand and the ballot paper in the other has been replaced with the make-up bag in one hand with the ballot paper in the other. Lipstick, not Semtex, is the order of the day.

Secondly, with opinion polls showing a Sinn Fein surge in the Republic, attending such a prestigious Royal event as the Coronation will also fuel the perception among Southern-based voters that Sinn Fein can be trusted with the reins of government after the next Dail General Election, expected next year.

Again, Sinn Fein will be targeting traditional middle class voters from Fianna Fail’s election base as well as the youth vote and first-time voters for whom the IRA is merely a name in history books.

Sinn Fein needs to maintain the opinion poll momentum that it can run a country responsibly and not merely be a party of protest against the Dublin establishment of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.

After all, the last time enjoyed such all-island election success was in the Westminster poll of 1918 weeks after the end of the Great War when the movement won most of the Commons seats when Ireland was entirely in the British Empire.

If Sinn Fein can sell the myth south of the Irish border that its IRA past has been well and truly politically ‘disappeared’, then the chances of party president Mary Lou McDonald becoming either Taoiseach in the Sinn Fein-led government, or Tanaiste as part of a coalition government in the Dail are rapidly increased.

Thirdly, Sinn Fein has made no secret of its desire for a border poll on Irish Unity. Whilst a Tory Government at Westminster will not grant such a demand, there is always the chance a Labour Government under boss Sir Keir Starmer would grant this republican wish.

However, the next Westminster poll may also be a close run election. Sinn Fein currently has seven MPs, but because of the outdated abstentionist policy, the party does not take its Commons seats over the oath of allegiance.

However, appearing at the coronation may be the latest stage in a carefully thought-out plan to convince the Sinn Fein membership to abandon abstentionism.

After all, this process began in the mid 1980s when the Adams/McGuinness leadership successfully persuaded the movement to drop its abstentionist policy towards TDs taking their Dail seats. In spite of a walkout by hardliners to form the breakaway Republican Sinn Fein party, mainstream Provisional Sinn Fein now has almost 40 TDs in Leinster House.

Gone, too, is the boycott of Stormont which the party adopted for the 1982-86 Assembly as well as the 1996-98 Northern Ireland Forum. Sinn Fein now not only allows its MLAs to take their Assembly seats, but when the power-sharing Executive was fully functioning also took up ministerial posts and operated the partitionist parliament in Belfast!

So with taking seats at council, Assembly, Dail and European levels, the only barrier which remains is the House of Commons. Seven Sinn Fein MPs, for example, could be in a strong bargaining position with British Labour if the latter only needed a handful of MPs to guarantee Starmer the keys to 10 Downing Street.

Put bluntly, would Sinn Fein drop abstentionism to prop up a British Labour Government at Westminster in exchange for a guaranteed border poll, especially, if like the Good Friday Agreement referenda, that border poll was all-island and not just limited to the six counties of Northern Ireland?

Would Sinn Fein then be able to call upon Biden’s billions or all 32 counties rejoining the European Union as a new nation as a way of financially bankrolling the New Ireland?

Given the opinion poll collapse for support for the Scottish National Party over the financial allegations, could British Labour win back enough seats north of the English border at the next General Election in the event of an SNP electoral collapse?

While dissident republican terrorism still remains a threat in Northern Ireland, it various political mouthpieces still remain on the fringes and are no threat to Sinn Fein politically.

Sinn Fein is deciding which is the bigger ace card - the fact that the party is organised on an all-Ireland basis unlike the SDLP, or counter the SDLP’s influence at Westminster by Sinn Fein dropping abstentionism.

Sinn Fein has a definite agenda. Why else would the republican movement’s ruling IRA Army Council give the green light to elected representatives attending a Royal showpiece.

If the former IRA commander, the late Martin McGuinness, can shake hands with the late Queen Elizabeth, Sinn Fein will milk the coronation politically in exchange for ditching the Commons abstentionism.
Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter
Listen 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

Is ‘Royal’ Sinn Fein Going Back To Its Dominion Status Roots?

Anthony McIntyre ☠  If Michelle O’Neill and Alex Maskey remotely resembled anything vaguely republican, then republicans would doubtless have cause to be embarrassed at them traipsing off to London from Britain’s northern Bantustan suitably attired to sit in deference at the feet of their king.

The day when either looked or behaved like republicans is so far back in the distant past that anyone below the age of 30 is unlikely to remember it. But as neither is any longer a republican, both having made the transition to pliant constitutional nationalism, their presence at a British royal coronation should not cause any embarrassment, much less rage, to republicans. They are merely doing what constitutional nationalists are expected to do – know their place in the pecking order on the British power grid.

While much personal bile has been levelled at them by critics on social media, there is little to be gained from ploughing that barren field. The bulk of the criticism tends to miss the point. They are not republicans betraying the cause, having long since moved away from republicanism. Their real transgression lies in their own fiction that they are republicans attending because they are leaders of everyone in the North who happen to respect that unionists value the monarchy. This conveniently overlooks that there are lots of things that unionists respect but which republicans would balk from giving credence to.

If Sinn Fein respect for the unionists was genuine rather than ersatz, instead of engaging in political gimmickry the party would tell them that its Siamese twin, the IRA, was responsible for the Kingsmill massacre. But it resiles from doing so because the discourse of respect is a fallacy, aimed at making Sinn Fein appear reasonable while making the unionists look unreasonable – the latter never too difficult to achieve at the best of times. Sinn Fein is all about shafting unionism not respecting it – not that there is much to complain about there: if anything needs shafting it is political unionism - and from that political-strategic perspective, victory to the banquet men is advantageous to the party.

Ironically, the real republicans in the vicinity of yesterday’s coronation were those English folk who were arrested outside it for protesting the monarchy. Liverpool, not Derry or Belfast, now forms the vanguard of anti-monarchist sentiment.

It is doubtful that O’Neill at any rate is an enthusiastic monarchist, even if she and the former mayor of Belfast were dining inside the royal marquee and not outside protesting with the republicans. To use a friend’s term, because Sinn Fein is 'gagging' for the type of government that will give it formal rather than real power, it feels compelled to play the game by the rules the current governments have prescribed. Were they republicans, in the week of his 42nd anniversary, they would have turned up at the coronation wearing Bobby Sands emblazoned T-shirts. But as his presence would have offended the monarchy, Sands had to be kept well away from the event. This time no one should expect the Adamsesque porkie about wearing the T-shirt beneath the outer garments.

Besides, as he was a blanket man and not a banquet man, Sands in all likelihood would have been appalled at his concealment beneath a tuxedo, his death from hunger in such contrast to stomachs filled with quail eggs and pink gin.

The political behaviour of Maskey and O’Neill has produced quite a lot of mirth at the magic of it all: how a once radical republican movement, by the wave of a wand to the sound of an English monarch mumbling abracadabra in Irish, became magically transformed into a deradicalised and constitutionalised project which poses as much threat to the British state in Ireland as the Church of England.

The first minister in waiting might as well be the Vicar Of Dibley.

Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre.

As British As Finchley, As Dangerous As Dibley

John Crawley ✍ The term’ false flag’ originated in the 16th century when a naval ship approaching the enemy would hoist a bogus banner to misrepresent its true allegiance. 

Sinn Féin habitually flies a false flag by waving the Tricolour in nationalist areas but, while on the international stage, demonstrating their true allegiance to the British pacification strategy known as the Irish Peace Process.

I have heard a number of Republicans say Sinn Féin is attending the coronation of a foreign King who claims jurisdiction in our country in order to gain votes. I doubt that. There are few votes from nationalists, and certainly none from republicans, in doing so. Neither will a single unionist wake up republican the following morning.

The purpose is to signal to London, Dublin, and Washington that Sinn Féin is house-trained. That the counterinsurgency project of pacification and normalisation has been achieved, and the Provisional movement has fully bought into Britain’s analysis of the nature of the conflict and a British blueprint to resolve it. The Provos boast of the long war, but the Brits are masters of the long game. They realise Ireland has no shortage of weak and ambitious puppets keen to carve out political careers by partnering with Britain in validating and consolidating our country’s constitutional divisions. The Brits know the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. It won’t be long until you hear ‘this Shared Island’ become ‘these Shared Islands’. In the words of a senior British civil servant written nearly fifty years ago:

It is in our interest to see a strong Provisional Sinn Féin, if at the expense of the SDLP, so that the extremists are brought into the mainstream of politics and are forced to act politically and in due course responsibly... - - ‘The Republican Movement’, 5 May 1976, CJ4/1427, UK National Archives.

Who can doubt, when they watch Sinn Féin representatives attend the coronation of King Charles, that they are, in Britain’s view, acting responsibly? That Sinn Féin has been utterly co-opted to the muddled belief that the conquest and colonisation of Ireland shares parity of esteem and reciprocal legitimacy with its struggle for independence. That the British royal family should play a continuing role in our country, providing an institutional point of reference for the loyalties of those citizens who cannot bring themselves to discard the symbolism of the British Crown, the entity which underwrote the twin pillars of plantation Protestantism - confiscation and sectarian supremacy.

Far from breaking the connection with England, there are powerful and influential forces attempting to deconstruct the concept of Irish nationhood and lure the whole of Ireland more fully into a British orbit. Suggestions include changing the national flag, ditching the national anthem, and the 26-Counties re-joining the British Commonwealth. On the 29th of March this year, Lord David Frost, a former British diplomat and Minister of State at the Cabinet Office, told a gathering in Lisbon that, ‘In time, the Irish will be part of our British future’.

A major contextual thread running throughout Irish history since the first Home Rule Bill in 1886 is reconciling Irish nationalism to British sovereignty. Attendance at the coronation is a powerful symbol of how that definition of reconciliation has bedded in with counter-republicans.

An illuminating example of how Sinn Féin has corrupted the republican concept of reconciliation and converted it to a British definition can be found in their discussion document ‘Towards a New Ireland’ (2016), in which Sinn Féin makes no mention of the republican analysis of a national compromise but, incredibly, quotes King George V:

May this historic gathering be the prelude of a day in which the Irish people, North and South, under one parliament or two, as those parliaments may themselves decide, shall work together in common love for Ireland upon the sure foundations of mutual justice and respect. – King George V, message to the Stormont Parliament, 7th June 1921

Nationalist thought leaders who populate the GFA commentariat define political maturity as the ability to disregard republican principles and internalise Britain’s spin on Irish democracy. Among their more mature reflections:

  • British jurisdiction in the North of Ireland is legitimate, and the Crown forces that protect and preserve it are the proper authority who retain a sole monopoly on the right to bear arms and the lawful use of force. Irish nationalists are encouraged to become their constables and informers.
  • The sectarian dynamic and the resulting British/Irish cleavage in national loyalties should be embraced for the sake of peace, as opposed to ending them for the sake of peace.
  • Dublin’s constitutional claim to the North of Ireland was archaic and aggressive and was rightfully superseded by Britain’s claim to jurisdiction over that section of our people and territory.
  • Irish unity can only be achieved when terms and conditions set by the British government are met.
  • Britain’s civil, political, judicial, and military apparatus in Ireland is no longer the British presence. Rather, it is those unionists who reside in six of the nine counties of Ulster (unfortunately, those of a unionist sympathy and heritage in the other three counties of Ulster are Irish citizens who, if born after 1949, do not qualify for British citizenship.)

Demolishing republican doctrine from within by an organisation universally considered to be the republican movement has been the ne plus ultra of British counterinsurgency strategy since day one. General Mike Jackson, former head of the British army and second in command of the Parachute Regiment on Bloody Sunday, said his army’s campaign in the North was ‘one of the very few ever brought to a successful conclusion by the armed forces of a developed nation against an irregular force’.

On the 6th of May this year, Britain’s King Charles, head of the only monarchy in Europe still conducting a religious coronation, will take three oaths - the Scottish oath to uphold the Presbyterian church in Scotland; the Accession Declaration oath to be a faithful Protestant; and the coronation oath, which includes promising to uphold the rights and privileges of the Church of England.

Sinn Féin will dutifully attend while the British state confirms with all the pomp and ceremony it can muster that it is, at heart, a sectarian state where no Catholic can lawfully be crowned sovereign. Do Sinn Féin forget, or do they simply not care, that England forcibly planted the malignancy of sectarian apartheid into our country? The Shinners will sit respectfully and listen while King Charles mumbles a few words in the Irish language, signifying that a part of Ireland remains one of the four nations of the United Kingdom.

What became of the Republican project to break the connection with England and assert the independence of our country? To unite the whole people of Ireland, to abolish the memory of past dissensions, and to substitute the common name of Irishman in place of the denominations of Protestant, Catholic, and Dissenter?

Wolfe Tone’s plea to embrace national unity across the sectarian divide was echoed over a century later by the signatories of the 1916 Proclamation calling for us to be … ‘oblivious of the differences carefully fostered by an alien government, which have divided a minority from the majority in the past.’ The signatories were not claiming these differences did not exist, nor were they saying they could be dismissed as irrelevant. They were saying that these differences should not be used to shape the political architecture of Ireland.

In contrast, those who support the Good Friday Agreement, and send their representatives to honour Britain’s king, are determined that these differences will be permanently embedded in our national fabric. That unionists will remain forever in Ireland but not of it. The Irish Republican movement was founded exclusively by Protestants. Yet, Sinn Féin proposes that Protestant schools in a united Ireland should continue to promote unionist culture and the British perspective. This is what they mean by an ‘Agreed Ireland’; British influence remains, and the Irish agree to it. When Sinn Féin speaks of ‘Sharing this island,’ they mean sharing in Britain’s analysis of the nature of the conflict, sharing in the colonial legacy of sectarian apartheid, and sharing in the imperial project of divide and rule.

Many in Sinn Féin see no sense in aiming high and potentially missing when they can aim low and hit every time. Why risk life, limb, and liberty pursuing a republican strategy the British will politically and militarily resist when careers can be enjoyed on the back of a counter-republican strategy the Brits will endorse and finance? Why risk struggling for a secular Republic when one can lower the bar to some nebulous entity called ‘This Island’ where the sectarian scaffolding comes preassembled by the British government? Why not internalise the conditions, parameters, and political architecture of the united Ireland demanded by Britain, should it ever come to pass, and proclaim victory by maintaining that’s what we were fighting for all along?

The Good Friday Agreement is a snare and a delusion. It entangles us in a web of terms and conditions regarding Irish unity that only Britain can interpret and adjudicate. It invites the delusion British legislation will pave the way to a national democracy within an All-Ireland republic. A political outcome Britain has strenuously rejected and sabotaged at every opportunity.

It is, however, a snare and a delusion that pays well. It has gifted some unremarkable people with remarkable careers, many of whom would never have held a rewarding job without it. George Orwell wrote,’ In times of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.’ At the moment, Republican truth cannot shout louder than those lies that come wrapped in a British pound note.

As I regard the self-satisfied smirks from the Shinners when their delegation returns from His Majesty’s coronation boasting of how they have played a blinder and wrong-footed unionism, I will recall the words of Samuel Adams directed toward former comrades during the American revolution:

If you love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquillity of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.

John Crawley is a former IRA volunteer and author of The Yank.

A False Flag

Dr John Coulter ✒ even our ardent Royalist Monday columnist has had to admit that Sinn Fein outfoxed Unionism in its welcome for King Charles III in Northern Ireland and its attendance at Queen Elizabeth’s state funeral. 

But what is the real agenda behind the republican movement’s ‘fluffy bunny’ attitude to the Monarchy?

In football terms, Sinn Fein ‘played a blinder’ in its approach to the state funeral of Queen Elizabeth and the visit to Northern Ireland of King Charles, but is the real reason for the republican movement’s seemingly new found respect for the Monarchy really preparing the ground for Sinn Fein to cross the final democratic hurdle - abandoning its historic abstentionist policy on Commons MPs taking their seats at Westminster?

In terms of how the period of mourning and state funeral for Queen Elizabeth was played politically, Sinn Fein left Unionism - of whatever shade - in the shadows.

Indeed, for Sinn Fein, it was a double-edged sword. Firstly, it earlier kept the hardline republican element on board with a speech stating there was no other alternative to violence in terms of the IRA’s campaign of terror, murder, bombing and mayhem (my words!)

But with political jungle drums now warning of a December Stormont election, next year’s Northern Ireland local government elections, and a looming Dail election in the Republic, Sinn Fein also needed to mop up more SDLP voters as well as lure Catholic votes away from the Alliance surge in recent elections - and convince Southern Irish voters that Sinn Fein could be a competent party of government and not simply a youthful protest movement.

In the 1918 Westminster General Election, when Ireland was still united under British rule, Sinn Fein won the majority of the 105 Commons seats, but its MPs did not take their seats.

This makes you wonder what could have been achieved in the Treaty negotiations had Sinn Fein been a truly democratic party and its MPs had taken those Commons seats in the aftermath of the ending of the Great War.

Abstentionism has been a key political plank in Sinn Fein policy since the party was formed in 1905. It would be just over 80 years later that Sinn Fein would vote to end abstentionism, allowing its TDs to take their seats in Leinster House.

Who can forget the carefully choreographed conference when then Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams in 1986 applauded hardliner Ruairi O Bradaigh and publicly clapped him on the back and shook hands with him in an apparent show of ‘unity’ over the ‘drop Dail abstentionism’ vote.

O Bradaigh lost the vote and promptly walked out to form the fringe Republican Sinn Fein party. Sinn Fein abstained from taking its seats in the 1982 Northern Ireland Assembly and the 1986 Northern Ireland Forum for Political Dialogue, but following the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, Sinn Fein took its seats in the new Northern Ireland Assembly.

Indeed, in spite of being a euro skeptic party for years, Sinn Fein MEPs from both sides of the Irish border took their seats in the European Parliament.

The late Queen will always be remembered for her Christian attitude of peace and reconciliation. Her visit to Croke Park, her laying a wreath in memory of those killed fighting for Irish independence and her historic handshake with the late Martin McGuinness, the former Derry IRA commander and then Stormont deputy First Minister, all paved the way for Sinn Fein to gradually, step by step, get sucked into the British establishment.

The ‘not a word out of place’ policy by Sinn Fein’s Northern leader Michelle O’Neill and Stormont Speaker Alex Maskey during the visit of King Charles prior to the state funeral has further laid the groundwork for two major steps for the republican movement - Sinn Fein taking its Commons seats and even accepting peerages in the House of Lords.

On reading this last paragraph, some may be tempted to sneer at such concepts. But Irish politics is often the politics of the impossible.

As a young cub BBC freelance journalist in 1981, I covered the Fermanagh South Tyrone Westminster by-election caused by the death of the IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands MP.

The winner that day was Owen Carron, Sands’ election agent, who eventually lost the Westminster seat two years later to the Ulster Unionist Ken Maginnis.

But after Carron made his victory speech that day in Enniskillen, if I’d told him or his supporters that one day Sinn Fein would sit in a partitionist parliament at Stormont and become ministers in a power-sharing Executive with the DUP, I would have been soundly laughed at. But it happened.

So when I see Michelle O’Neill and Alex Maskey greeting the new King Charles III like a long lost friend and Sinn Fein sitting in the congregation at the Queen’s state funeral service, I have to ask - what is the rank and file of the republican movement being prepared for?

Many years may have elapsed since the former West Belfast Westminster MP, the late Gerry Fitt, took his seat in the House of Lords as Lord Fitt. In this modern political era, taking seats in the Commons and Lords has always been the domain of moderate nationalist politicians from the SDLP.

However, if King Charles can pick up the diplomatic baton from his late mother and chat cordially with Sinn Fein representatives in spite of Sinn Fein’s military wing, the IRA, murdering his beloved grand uncle - Lord Louis Mountbatten - then the republican movement leadership can reciprocate those Royal Kingly handshakes by getting even more deeply involved with the British political establishment.

After all, given the infiltration of the republican movement by the British intelligence community’s network of spies, agents and informers, surely someone of influence within the republican movement can start the whisper of ‘time to take our Commons seats!’

Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter
Listen 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

Could King Charles Encourage Sinn Fein To Abandon Abstentionism?

Anthony McIntyre ✒ As Peter Anderson wrote earlier, what a week.


One of those fabled Martians just fresh from reading George Orwell as a guide to Planet Earth might feel they were observing the funerary ritual around Big Sister. Screens and monitors in ubiquity, a saturation of martial culture, obedience and conformity demanded from on high, all citizens must march in step - we who mourn together - with lashings of pomp and conservative tradition laid on thick. Not a discordant note would be heard, even from a child with Tourette’s. Abusers were permitted to ceremonially walk the highways and byways while those pillorying them were arrested; an erstwhile republican party, some former leaders of which sat on the army council that signed off on the killing of Big Sister’s cousin, felt honoured to be able to curtsy and bow. If there is something to be found that is amusing in a sea of mourning, it has to be that. And the maestros of meme reminded us with savage wit.


Sinn Fein’s relationship to British royalty is deferential whereas it used to be defiant. Its odyssey marks the party's transition from radical opponent of the establishment to compliant team player within the establishment. When Mark Durkan as SDLP leader attended the funeral of the Queen Mother, Sinn Fein lambasted him as a West Brit. Fair to assume that, whatever he was, his critics are no different.

A genuine republican party, it might be imagined, would be railing against cancer patients’ hospital appointments being cancelled because of the Queen’s funeral, against Clarence House workers being made redundant after her death, against anti-monarchy protesters being arrested. Not a word on any of that from Sinn Fein.

It is indicative of how successful British counter insurgency strategy has been - bringing republicans on board the Royal yacht but on condition that republicanism first walked the plank. There remains a bit of radical posturing but no radical substance. In essence the party has been deradicalized and constitutionalised. While it might position the deckchairs differently, it is really not all that different from Fianna Fail and Fine Gael in its eagerness to take its place at the queen’s feet beside the royal corgi.

The British establishment has moulded Sinn Fein in its own image, manifested in the V.S. Naipaul mimic men imagery where Sinn Fein-Monarchy interaction exudes the penumbra Victory to the Banquet Men over the Blanket Men.

All this in a context of the British establishment not having changed its attire or demeanour but having Sinn Fein officials looking and sounding more like prison governors than prisoners and agreeing to republican activists of the Bobby Sands era being prosecuted in British non-jury Courts if evidence becomes available. In an Alice In Wonderland turn of events, the party now sounds considerably less radical than Jedward in relation to British royalty. If you were to greet a Sinn Fein member of long standing, rather than a Johnny-come-lately, with God save the King, they would scowl at you – not because they suspect you are wrong, but because you remind them that they are.

Part of Sinn Fein spinning is to laud the Queen for her part in the peace process. It is impossible to see what role she played in it other than, as victorious sovereign whose sovereignty Sinn Fein promised to end, meeting Martin McGuinness in his role as a former leader of an army that had abandoned its own terms for unity and accepted the British terms – unity only by consent. He lined up to meet her. She did not line up to meet him. The Sovereign and the subject. Tells us something about the power asymmetry.

Yet, tactically, as part of its embrace of establishment politics, it is a prudent move. Sinn Fein will not be harmed by it and have certainly outflanked the DUP by taking up poll position as cheerleaders for the monarchy. As searingly described by Deirdre Heenan:

The first visit of a new King should have been a moment to savour for the DUP. Instead it was a humiliating, PR disaster. They were completely outmanoeuvred and sidelined by Sinn Féin in a situation completely of their own making.

More proof if needed that the DUP since Foster can be relied upon to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Republicans who continue to maintain a republican stance towards monarchy will find the entire thing an objectionable ideological charade where lapdogs and corgis each know their place. Designed with one overriding priority - conserve and preserve the decadence of imperial inequality and wealth disparity. But it is long past the point where such objections amount to much other than venting steam. It has no political currency in the present political climate where the spirit of the times has decisively swung against the traditional republican worldview.

At the heel of the hunt, Sinn Fein is doing what it has to do in order to maintain its place within the establishment camp. It’s good for business, literally, and political careers.

⏩ Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre

He's Our King Too, You Know

Dixie Elliot  ✑ Back in August 1977 my view of the world was blocked by barbed wire fences and high concrete walls. 


I had only been on the blanket protest just under two months from the time I was sentenced that June. We hadn't yet wrecked our cells, thus beginning the no-wash protest and thoughts of a hunger strike were the furthest thing from our minds. That very month the British Queen was over in the north on a royal visit, it was her 25th year jubilee. Thousands of Republicans had taken to the streets of West Belfast in a mass protest against this visit. A huge banner referred to her as 'The Queen of Death'.

The war against British rule in Ireland was raging on the streets and in the countryside, while Sinn Féin worked out of leaking caravans and decaying terraced houses. Electoralism was seen as conformity and a betrayal and dare anyone even mention it. Little did we know that it was, in fact, already on the minds of a certain few and that a movement within the Republican Movement was growing like a cancer. This cabal would eventually take the Movement down a path where a future Sinn Féin leader; a millionaire former Fianna Fáiler called Mary Lou McDonald, would praise that same British queen 'on a lifetime of service'.

The Sinn Féin of the leaking caravans and the decaying terraced houses has become the richest party in Ireland. It is already an establishment party in the north and down south: it supports the Special Criminal Court, which was established by the Free State government in 1939 to suppress Irish Republicanism. Using this legislation they executed six IRA volunteers between 1940 and 1944.

The party which once led protests against royal visits now not only warmly welcomes them, they are doing what no other party in Ireland could possibly get away with, they are making the British royals acceptable in this country.

During the 1981 hunger strike Bobby Sands stood in the Fermanagh and South Tyrone by-election for one reason only, in the hope that Thatcher couldn't let an MP die. Thatcher being the evil bitch that she was refused to budge and Bobby did die. His election victory opened the door slightly for those with political ambitions who wanted to steer the movement towards the ballot box.

Forty years after Bobby's historic election victory, to the day, the Sinn Féiners were preoccupied with sending condolences to the British royals on the death of a notorious racist, Prince Philip. In fact I waited until 11:30pm that night to see if Michelle O'Neill had so much as mentioned Bobby's election victory before going to her page to remind her. Alex Maskey's statement on the death of Prince Philip was shocking beyond the belief of any right-minded Republican. He described him as someone with 'a long and full record of public service'. Maskey also referred to 'a life well lived'.

'A lifetime of service' - Mary Lou McDonald.

'A long and full record of public service.' - Alex Maskey.

These two heaped the type of praise on the British queen and her racist husband which you'd come to expect from a Unionist. They are certainly not the words any principled Republican would use. Sinn Féin has clearly cast principled Republicanism aside like a used coat and they have taken to wearing a cloak of respectability. They later went on to apologise for the killing of Mountbatten by the IRA in 1979. A royal on whom the FBI had released files regarding his ‘lust for young men’ and who had introduced Jimmy Savile to the British royal family in the 1960s as ‘a useful contact’ (Savile’s own words taken from an Express newspaper interview.)

During the Ballymurphy Inquiry, at a time when horrific stories regarding the murderous Parachute Regiment were emerging on a daily basis, their Colonel-in-Chief, Prince Charles paid a visit to Belfast. This was clearly an act of British arrogance yet the Sinn Féin mayor of the city, John Finucane was there to greet him.

Less than 24 hours after it had been announced that no further charges would be brought over the Bloody Sunday massacre, Prince Charles, showing British arrogance yet again, paid another visit to the north. On that occasion Michelle O’Neill and Declan Kearney were there to stand at his side. When asked why they had met with him, Michelle O’Neill said, ‘the Royals have played a positive role throughout the peace process.’ Really? This is a family steeped in militarism, who are heads of probably every regiment in the British armed forces. Around that time ‘The Overseas Operations Bill’, which was ‘to tackle vexatious claims against our Armed Forces’, was given Royal Assent. Was this the Royals playing a positive role in the peace process?

James Connolly attacked royal visits as ‘signs of disease in any social state’ and accused those who took part in them as ‘dirt-eating capitalist traitors.’ Yet this seems to matter little to Sinn Féin who have taken the path they are on and only look back when those who gave their lives in the past can be of use to them politically or financially. It is shocking to think that many who are purporting to be Republicans continue to believe that this is ‘all a part of some bigger picture.’ No matter what the party does, it is followed up by its membership and supporters taking to social media with outrageously idiotic claims of victory in that the ‘Unionists won’t like that’, or ‘they didn’t see that coming’ or ‘Sinn Féin reaching out again.’

Why are Sinn Féin really on a path that would never have haunted our worst nightmares during the blackest nights of the Blanket Protest? Are they being forced down it or are they doing what they do in an effort to win the British round to the idea of a United Ireland as part of the British Commonwealth? They’re thrown out enough hints that this is a strong possibility.

Mary Lou McDonald said in August 2018 that, ‘the idea of Ireland rejoining the Commonwealth needs to be discussed.’ She said in the same statement that, ‘the Irish government must start to put plans in place for a United Ireland.’

Chris Donnelly tweeted in March 2019, ‘whilst there’s little appetite for it in existing circumstances, Republicans(and others)have for long openly discussed the issue of Commonwealth membership in a United Ireland.’

Who are these others? The Irish government/Fianna Fáil/Fine Gael?

Robin Percival used ‘India, South Africa and Tanzania,’as examples of ‘democratic republics’ which ‘are also members of the Commonwealth.’ He added that, ‘I can see no issue of principle here. Ireland within the Commonwealth might ease the road to unity.’

I notice that they used, ‘the Commonwealth’ rather than, ‘the British Commonwealth.’

When Mitchel McLaughlin accepted the post of President of the Assembly’s Commonwealth Parliamentary Association in 2015, he said that it was his ‘absolute duty’ to do so.

‘Absolute duty’ to whom? Certainly not to the cause of Republicanism, which has historically seen the British monarchy as having:

opposed every forward move, fought every reform, persecuted every patriot, and intrigued against every good cause. Slandering every friend of the people, it has befriended every oppressor.

Those are the words of James Connolly.

Alex Maskey now holds the post of President of the Assembly’s Commonwealth Parliamentary Association.

The Sinn Féin of today has as much in common with the ideals of Bobby Sands as the Irish Labour Party has with those of its co-founder, James Connolly.

Thomas Dixie Elliot is a Derry artist and a former H Block Blanketman.
Follow Dixie Elliot on Twitter @IsMise_Dixie

Royal Visits ✒ Signs Of Disease In Any Social State

Dixie Elliot ✒ has something booming around in his head. 

I've come across several posts by desperately deluded Sinn Féiners trying to convince my likes that in order to achieve Irish unity we must attract the vote of a wide spectrum of people, even that of the West Brit  - how ironic is that one?
 
The British Royals are now a thoroughly decent family, people to whom we should show our respect, my likes is informed. Regardless of the paedophilia and the lines of medals on their chests.
 
As I tried to make sense out of the nonsense it dawned on me that they were all playing the same tune badly, in that the nonsense was in fact a form of programming. No wonder those among them who use fake names are referred to as Shinnerbots.

I keep hearing a booming sound in my head when I read through their posts.

The problem with the Sinn Féiner's cunning plan is, that if a vote on Irish Unity does come around, they'll have implanted a sense of Britishness so firmly in the minds of their followers that they'll likely forget themselves & vote against it.

That's what the booming sound is, their cunning plan punching the inside of my head where my brain is stored...



Thomas Dixie Elliot is a Derry artist and a former H Block Blanketman.
Follow Dixie Elliot on Twitter @IsMise_Dixie

Boom Boom Boom Boom

Dixie Elliot writes of his disappointment towards those opposed to the publication of a comm from Bobby Sands on the 40th anniversary of his death. 

I have been made aware of the hypocrites on the Blanketmen and Women forum who were making comments about the timing of the Bobby Sands comm on the morning of the 40th anniversary of his death.
 
May I remind those hypocrites that on the very day of the 40th anniversary of Bobby's famous election victory, Mary Lou McDonald, Michelle O'Neill and worst of all, the President of the Stormont Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, Alex Maskey, were sending condolences to the repugnant British Royals on the death of a racist and that they later apologised for the actions of the IRA.
 
Apologising to the British Queen who is Head of the Armed Forces and Prince Charles who is Colonel-in-Chief of the murderous Paras.
 
The family who recently gave 'Royal Assent' to the 'Overseas Operations Bill'.
 
Did the hypocrites utter a word of condemnation? Not a chance in hell.

Forty years have passed since 10 brave men were dying on hunger strike in the H Blocks, known to the British as HMP Maze. - Her Majesty's Prison - and these hypocrites have the absolute gall to criticise the fact that Bobby's words dominated the air waves, drowning out those in Sinn Féin whose lips offered hypocritical homage at the shrine of that Freedom whose cause they had betrayed - to paraphrase James Connolly.

Bobby's words from beyond the grave damns them for what they have become.

May I also remind them that:

  • Michelle O'Neill and Declan Kearney stood at the side of the Colonel-in-Chief of the Paras the day after the Bloody Sunday Families were told that no charges would be brought against his murderous regiment.
  • That John Finucane was there greet him when he appeared in the north during the Ballymurphy Inquiry. 

Both visits were acts of British arrogance yet Sinn Féin choose to play along with it.

These hypocrites ignore the fact that Sinn Féin has chosen to stand with these people who still claim domination over the north of our country, something many brave men and women died fighting against. 

They ignore it in order to retain their jobs which are merely the crumbs dropping from the tables of their leadership.

They should be wondering when it will be their turn to be shafted.

Thomas Dixie Elliot is a Derry artist and a former H Block Blanketman.
Follow Dixie Elliot on Twitter @IsMise_Dixie

May I Remind Them

Mick Hall ✒ is fed up with all the sycophantic  fawning over the death of Philip Mountbatten

 The media coverage of the death of the English queen's husband is well over the top. Elderly men die.  It's part of the process of life. Admittedly in the pandemic some were helped on their way due to the gross incompetence of Boris Johnson, but Betsy's husband wasn't one of them.

After he fell off the perch in his gilded cage BBC radio and TV, ITV, Talk Radio, and Sky News were awash with interviews and programs about the life of this man, whose only real job since his marriage was to walk two paces behind his wife. No respect whatsoever has been given to the millions of us who have no interest in him or his dysfunctional family.

So what is going on? The ruling class never miss an opportunity to nail down their privileges and stamp their feet and this ridiculous charade is an example of this. The front page of last Saturday's Times said it all: Phillip Battenberg is dressed in finery which harks back to the British Empire - need I say more?

Whilst the usually suspects like Johnson, Starmer and their toddies, along with court jesters like Keith Richards and Mick Jagger are praising him to the high heavens, others who really should know better are doing like wise. Amongst the worst of these is the Sinn Fein leadership in the North of Ireland. Alex Maskey said this:

I am very sorry to learn of the passing of the Duke of Edinburgh after a long and full life of public service. I express my sympathy to her Majesty Queen Elizabeth on the loss of her husband and the rest of the Royal Family for the loss of a father, grandfather and great-grandfather.

 Michelle O’Neill went further and said: 

I wish to extend my sincere condolences to Queen Elizabeth and her family on the death of her husband Prince Philip. Over the past two decades there have been significant interventions by the British Royal family to assist in the building of relationships between Britain and Ireland.

I did wonder if they were both doffing caps, genuflecting to the crown as they spoke. Still I'm digressing from the subject.

Let me be clear the monarchy sits at the pinnacle of the British class system and has done for hundreds of years, the unelected position they hold have given the ruling classes the legitimacy to plunder other people's lands, and grind the British working classes into the ground.

It's not a coincidence the current holder of the crown is the richest woman in the world. She pays little tax on investments and properties while her family and forbearers have carved out countless acres of land for themselves. We're told she has no real power, just a figurehead. Oh really - then how come she gets a veto on all new legislation which impacts on her family? Indeed this family have made an artform out of tax dodging, not paying death duties, manipulation, conning the working classes and filling their boots with other people's money. It's high time they all went into the dustbin of history.

⏩ Mick Hall is a veteran Left Wing activist and trade unionist.

Prince Philip Of Plunder

Anthony McIntyre thinks Sinn Fein is so boxed in by the British political system that it had no choice but to send condolences to British royalty on the death of one of its elders. 

The death of the British Royal Philip Mountbatten has produced the wholly unsurprising spectacle of Sinn Fein once again eagerly demonstrating that the party has in its top echelons the greatest fawners ever.

Much of the republican sarcasm in the wake of the Duke of Edinburgh’s passing has not been directed at his or his family’s misfortune, but at the gushing profusion of faux sympathy from a party whose former key leaders were on the army council that targeted British royals including the Duke’s uncle, Louis Mountbatten.

Behind the sarcasm there is also anger. Online can be found, among others, former H-Block blanketmen venting their dismay. They remember only too sorely that on the day when Sinn Fein was sending its ostensible sincere condolences, forty years earlier Bobby Sands was elected to the British parliament, which with contempt allowed him to die only a few weeks later. There was not a word of condolence from Royal mouths then or since.

It upsets memory-equipped republicans that people whose political careers benefited immensely from the deaths of the hunger strikers should be sending their condolences to the British queen. Bobby’s words about the need to avoid becoming mere law-abiding robots would have resonated strongly with them.

In a different context those republicans might be more tolerant of it: one in which the IRA campaign to coerce Britain out of Ireland had not failed. They might then conceivably have viewed the expression of condolences as one of the necessary diplomatic protocols to be observed in a world of international diplomacy. But not in a context where, with the British still in Ireland on the very same terms as they were throughout the IRA campaign – unity only with the consent of a majority in the North - the British toff establishment expect and get political deference as distinct from defiance.

I respected neither Philip Mountbatten nor his family. I don’t see what respect is due a monarch from a republican. On his death I proffer neither respect nor disdain, more a fleeting indifference to the extent that I pay attention to it at all. It was once quipped that the only thing a republican should approach a monarch with is a bullhorn and a placard. While I would most certainly not take a leaf out of the bible of Westboro Baptist Church and turn up at his funeral ready to rant like a raving reverend, neither would I be approaching it with a wreath.

Sinn Fein’s critics on the matter tend to think the party could have behaved otherwise. In reality it cannot. It has been so smitten and bought by its inclusion in the British political system – its republicanism excluded - that rocking the Royal yacht is simply unthinkable. A dignified silence on the matter would simply never occur to the party. Its attitude to British royalty is remarkably similar to that of the Scottish nobility in the movie Braveheart. Anything less than forelock tipping would see them placed outside the diplomatic game whereby the slave is expected to kneel down and kiss its chains. Either that or be moved from the house and into the field.

Of course, there will be those who will claim to see in any criticism of the party's position a refusal to make the forward step from the past to the present; that the party is humane, authentic and reconciliatory in its expression of condolence. They should consider this: let Sinn Fein tell the families of the Kingsmill war crime dead and Joanne Mathers that it was the Provisional IRA that killed them rather than have the lie promoted that it was the work of some other group. That would say much for humaneness authenticity, and reconciliation. Otherwise, the condolences to royalty are mere political posturing.

I don't particularly mind if individual Sinn Fein members as private citizens express their condolences on the death of Philip Mountbatten. It is none of my business. But at the political level, given the role of British royalty in fronting for a political establishment that has spread poison across the globe for centuries, it sends the wrong message.

What, therefore, might be the right message? Try the Egyptian-American writer Mona Eltahawy who tweeted:

I do not mourn racists/sexists or any royals. Monarchies everywhere should be abolished, esp one which colonized and pillaged so extensively. To stop regular broadcasting because a royal has died, during a pandemic in a country where more than 100k have died, is ridiculous.

That would be the voice of Principled Leadership. But like everything else with Sinn Fein, that is a concept as dead as the hunger strikers. 

⏩Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre.

Ridiculous

Padraic Mac Coitirmuch has been written about Sinn Féin meeting the English parasites, and despite the criticism levelled at them they continue to meet them. 

It's so pathetic and their comments about those parasites and how much they're helping 'the peace process' prove to anyone - although it's sad many of their members and supporters support this charade- just how far they've gone in appeasing unionists. Foster and her crowd must love it when they see them grovelling in their lush buildings built on land stolen by planters. Just read last paragraph of this article - stomach churning.

Irish Republican News · October 2, 2020

SF meeting with Charles angers Bloody Sunday families

Sinn Féin has come in for stinging criticism for its meeting this week with Prince Charles, the head of the British Army’s Parachute Regiment, less than 24 hours after it was announced that no further charges will be brought over the Bloody Sunday massacre.

Fourteen people were killed and 22 were wounded when ‘the Paras’ opened fire on a peaceful protest against internment in Derry, on Sunday 30 January 1972.

The Bloody Sunday campaign for justice denounced the meeting between Charles Windsor and Sinn Féin’s leader in the North Michelle O’Neill and party chairman Declan Kearney, as “a demeaning betrayal”.

In a press statement, the Bloody Sunday March For Justice Committee said “the fact that representatives of the biggest nationalist party in the North” had travelled to Belfast to greet the commander in chief of the Parachute Regiment had come as “a bomb-shell” to many citizens of Derry, and to members of the Bloody Sunday families in particular.

It is astonishing that this should have happened within 24 hours of the families’ hopes of justice being dashed yet again. With just one exception, all of the members of Prince Charles’s regiment who took part in the Bloody Sunday massacre are to be let off the hook. At least, that’s the British establishment’s plan.
This is a demeaning betrayal. We march for the truth for 50 years, then the leader of the liars is made welcome in our midst!

The outcry recalled for the families another recent controversy when Sinn Féin met Prince Charles during the inquiry into the Ballymurphy massacre, when 11 civilians were killed by his regiment.

“If the lies were over, if Prince Charles and other military commanders were at last to tell the truth and say sorry, he might be entitled to a little bit of respect,” they said. “But he doesn’t have any respect for the people of Derry or for the Bloody Sunday dead.

Prince Charles’ role in the Parachute Regiment isn’t ceremonial. The paras don’t do ceremony. There was nothing ceremonial about what happened around Rossville Street, Glenfada Park, Joseph’s Place, etc.
Murder was done in the name of the State which Prince Charles is heir to. To shake his hand while the bereaved are still hurting is to bring shame on the city.

The recurring meetings between Sinn Féin and the British royals and their awkward timing has raised questions over whether the party is being influenced by a covert British agenda.

The failure to address concerns over the meetings has again had a deeply polarising effect on the republican community. Groups such as the 32 County Sovereignty Committee lashed out.

“What this shows is that quislings Michelle O’Neill and Declan Kearney, like others before them, care nothing for the victims and indeed the families of those murdered on bloody Sunday, nor the families and victims of countless murders by British armed forces in Ireland,” they said.

Former IRA PoW and Blanketman Dixie Elliott described the meeting as a show of arrogance.

“How much longer can they [Sinn Féin] be allowed to hide their duplicity behind a peace process that has lasted nearly as long as the war itself,” he asked.

Speaking to RTE television, Mr Kearney said the meeting had been “very important” for peace efforts. Although the British royals have never made any significant statement on the north of Ireland, Mr Kearney defended their role.

“Prince Charles and his mother have played a significant and positive role in helping us build on the progress,” he said.

Padraic Mac Coitir is a former republican
prisoner and current political activist.

Paras & Parasites

Press Statement By The Bloody Sunday March For Justice Committee.

The fact that representatives of the biggest Nationalist party in the North travelled to Belfast to greet the commander in chief of the Parachute Regiment has come as a bomb-shell to many citizens of Derry — to members of the Bloody Sunday families in particular.

It is astonishing that this should have happened within 24 hours of the families’ hopes of justice being dashed yet again. With just one exception, all of the members of Prince Charles’s regiment who took part in the Bloody Sunday massacre are to be let off the hook. At least, that’s the British establishment’s plan.


What has happened is a demeaning betrayal. We march for the truth for 50 years, then the leader of the liars is made welcome in our midst!

The Ballymurphy families will know what we mean.

If the lies were over, if Prince Charles and other military commanders were at last to tell the truth and say sorry, he might be entitled to a little bit of respect. But he doesn’t have any respect for the people of Derry or for the Bloody Sunday dead.

Prince Charles’ role in the Parachute Regiment isn’t ceremonial. The paras don’t do ceremony. There was nothing ceremonial about what happened around Rossville Street, Glenfada Park, Joseph’s Place, etc.

Murder was done in the name of the State which Prince Charles is heir to. To shake his hand while the bereaved are still hurting is to bring shame on the city.

The march towards truth and justice will continue for as long as it takes.

Demeaning Betrayal

Mick Hall views with disdain the decision by Sinn Fein to embrace British royalty. Mick Hall blogs @ Organised Rage.   
 
Sinn Féin West Belfast MP Paul Maskey (second right) attended a protest over Prince Charles visit to Ireland.

Gerry Adams And That Fatal Handshake With The British Crown