The Broken Elbow

Thanks to MM for digging it out. Here it is.

As I write, the latest version of the Good Friday Settlement is struggling for breath, half way between death and an existence dependent on one of those respirators that have become all too familiar in these Covid-ridden days.

I am tempted to say that I told you so, and now I have. If this collapse in Belfast takes hold it will be because of a fatal but foreseeable error in the post-Brexit architecture insisted upon by Europe, with the eager support of Dublin and, to a lesser extent, London.

The choice was between two models. One was to regard Northern Ireland as part and parcel of the UK’s non-membership of the EU, in which customs controls would approximate to the political border between North and South. The other was what we ended up with: no customs border on land, but at some mythical, invisible point in the Irish Sea, and the North, a part of an all-island set up.

I needn’t spell out the politics of this to most of my readers. It was a pro-Nationalist solution and everyone could see that, especially the Unionists. But of course it wasn’t sold like that at the time. Instead the Irish government summoned up ghosts from the Troubles and warned that establishing Europe’s Border in Ireland would remind people of partition, provoke republican hardliners and nourish a renaissance of republican violence. Remember Leo Varadkar’s trip to Europe, his briefcase stuffed with scary photographs of the IRA bombing of Newry customs station way back in the 1970’s’.

This is what we could return to, warned the bold Leo, if we re-erect a land border in Ireland. Europe agreed, the Brits went along and we ended up with an arrangement which, because it had been erected at the urging of Irish nationalists, would always be opposed by Unionists.

If that was the real plan, and the name of the game was to stick one into the Unionists, then fine; be honest about it. But in this debate, honesty had been in short supply,

At the core of the Varadkar proposition was a claim that it was the Border that had fueled the Troubles, when all the evidence was that while the Border certainly facilitated conflict, Unionist misbehavior was the real culprit. It is a cliche but true nonetheless: had Unionists reached out, as Captain Terence O’Neill urged them to do, and won the support of their Catholic neighbours way back in the 1960’s, it is very possible the Troubles would never have happened and the Border would hardly have mattered.

In this context the Brexit solution that was chosen has brought Northern Ireland to a different crisis. With the theoretical Border now somewhere in the Irish Sea, the absence of a land border serves to underline Unionists sense of insecurity and has led, inevitably, to yesterday’s resignations at Stormont. Putting Humpty together again will be, to put it mildly, a challenge.

The fault in the analysis and what it says about the South’s political understanding of the Provos – and the North – makes depressing reading. For Leo Varadkar to be correct then one would have to argue that people joined the IRA in Ballymurphy, the Short Strand and Andersonstown not because they had just had their heads kicked in by Paras, but because they had caught a glimpse of a barrier straddling a Border road.

To my mind, that’s a flimsy basis for such a big bet.

Don’t know myself what to make of this film but it’s definitely worth a look. Thanks to CO for the tip……

I was going to write ‘enjoy’ but perhaps that’s the worst word to use:

Very readable and useful article in Jacobin magazine. You can read it here. No surprises but they are all there, from Clinton to Epstein’s links to powerful figures in Israeli intelligence. On George Mitchell, who appeared five times in the logs of Epstein-owned aircraft, three of them with his wife, Jacobin records that Mitchell regarded Epstein as “a friend and a supporter” who “organized a fund-raiser for me once.” Apparently they met in 1994, during Mitchell’s final year in the Senate, and a year before he was made Clinton’s special envoy to the peace process. Mitchell, who would later call Epstein “a friend and supporter” went on to oversee the Philadelphia archdiocese’s payment of compensation for survivors of sexual abuse at the hands of priests, assailed by critics at the time as a ploy to get abuse victims to sign away their right to sue. A lot still to be told in this story, assuming it is allowed to be told…….

Here are two examples of the liberal/left wing view of where America can go to and could go in the next few years. This is from the Sanders wing of the Democratic Party which you can read here, and here is the vista as seen from The New York Times, a more centrist, small-l, liberal view. If either of these analyses is only partly correct we are all in trouble…..and that’s before you factor in the climate crisis, which can only worsen matters.

Last week’s judgement in a Manhattan, New York court that Price Andrew can be sued by Jeffrey Epstein sex victim Virginia Roberts Giuffre, – in spite of an agreement reached by Epstein and Giuffre allegedly protecting both himself and other men who had sex with her from legal action – could have serious implications for, inter alia, top US politician, George Mitchell and celebrity lawyer, Alan Dershowitz, both of whom have been mired in the scandal.

Both Mitchell and Dershowitz have strongly denied allegations of involvement in Epstein’s sex circle but the claims have persisted, nonetheless. At this stage it is not clear whether the legal judgement depriving Prince Andrew of protection against Giuffre would be reversed if she decided to sue the pair, who unlike Andrew are US citizens.

Given remarks from Giuffre’s lawyer after the New York court case that his client would be unwilling to accept a purely financial settlement – “I think it’s very important to Virginia Giuffre that this matter be resolved in a way that vindicates her and vindicates the other victims” – it seems unlikely that she would stop at Prince Andrew.

Interesting days ahead…….

“The ‘Outrage’ propaganda should be dropped in the Twenty-Six Counties. It can have no effect but to make certain of our people see red which will …

The ‘outrage’ propaganda should be dropped: from Belfast pogroms to the Hooded Men and Miami Showband

Worth reading, and perhaps re-visiting after the next presidential poll…….

The one person who should be asked for an opinion on Gerry Adams’ most recent piece of foolishness is Mary Lou McDonald who, last time I looked, was still Sinn Fein’s national leader. Yet somehow and for reasons that were neither addressed nor answered, The Irish Times reporters covering this story failed to put the question to her. Extraordinary.