Policing Progress
If Gerry Adams were to tell me today is Monday, I’d doublecheck my diary just to make sure.
I don’t believe that Sinn Fein should be ever considered a truly democratic party, until there is a full and frank confession of the crimes committed by all its members during the last four decades.
I believe that The Cult of Leader Gerry inhibits true political debate and progress within not only Sinn Fein, but Northern Ireland as a whole.
I believe Sinn Fein are still essentially a sectarian party, uninterested in widening their electoral support beyond their own “traditional” narrow support-base….
Yet, yet…..
I was talking to a very close relative last night, one who lost two of his best friends to Provo murder gangs in the early 80s. We were nattering, of course, about the day’s developments down at the RDS.
His verdict on the passed Ard Chomhairle motion was posed in a rhetoric question, “well, is it good news for Northern Ireland or not?”
“To achieve this the Ard Chomhairle is hereby mandated to:* Appoint Sinn Féin representatives to the Policing Board and the District Policing Partnership Boards to ensure that:- a civic policing service, accountable and representative of the community is delivered as quickly as possible, - the Chief Constable and the PSNI are publicly held to account,- policing with the community is achieved as the core function of the PSNI,
- political policing, collusion and “the force within a force” is a thing of the past and to oppose any involvement by the British Security Service/MI5 in civic policing” Strip away all the macho posturing, the flowery speeches, the carefully stage-managed photo opportunities.
Strip away all the macho posturing, the flowery speeches, the carefully stage-managed photo opportunities. This motion is Republicans accepting, for the first time, that everybody in Northern Ireland deserves a police force, an impartial Northern Irish police force working under the normal legal guidelines followed by any other police force in the UK (or the rest of Europe for that matter). Crime prevention carried out not by the boys with balaclavas and baseballs, but by *normal*, on-the-beat coppers.
And if you look at the end of the motion, that acceptance isn’t conditional:
“That the Ard Chomhairle is mandated to implement this motion only when the power-sharing institutions are established and when the Ard Chomhairle is satisfied that the policing and justice powers will be transferred. Or if this does not happen within the St Andrews timeframe, only when acceptable new partnership arrangements to implement the Good Friday Agreement are in place.”
Whether it’s a power-sharing executive or Plan B, Sinn Fein have agreed to the principle of supporting the PSNI and the criminal justice system. It’s there in back and white.
Now, of course, actions speak louder than words and of course, I still hold much of what Sinn Fein stands for in deep contempt, but… surely isn’t that statement good news for all of us in Northern Ireland?
