Bishopsgate bomb 1993

Tony Blair warned during the EU referendum that  leaving the EU in a manner which would create a physical border  in Northern Ireland could disrupt peace on the island, but it appeared that people were willing to “sacrifice peace on the altar of Brexit”.

George Hamilton, the Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland  has said that any physical border “would becomes a target for violent dissident republicans”. He noted that the threat from  “hard line factions still engaged in violence, such as the New IRA”, was severe. He pointed out that last year there were five serious attempts by dissident republicans to kill his officers, including a gun attack in north Belfast that left two policemen wounded.

This is an acknowledgement that twenty years after the ‘peace agreement’ terrorist groups prepared to usurp the state still exist, and moreover, that governments of various political persuasions have been prepared to  accept this position for more than two decades.  He also noted that many of these groups  used the political aims as a “protective cloak” to engage in drug dealing, loan sharking and prostitution i.e. major organised crime.

Blair’s argument for avoiding a border appears to be a response to the threat that unless the democratically elected government of the UK as a whole arranges its affairs in a manner which satisfies a small number of terrorists then the latter will resort to force of arms to murder citizens and destroy infrastructure of the land.

His approach appears to be to capitulate to this threat of murderous violence, rather than suggesting policies which eradicate such threats from armed terrorist groups on our soil. This is in accord  with the line taken in the original ‘peace agreement’ process.  The Epistle to the Galatians 6,7 comes to mind “whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap”, with Blair having largely originally cast the  grain – no wonder he wishes to obscure the source of this dilemma.