“And that is the larger difficulty..”
Renewed speculation on a UK Department of the Regions is being discussed in earnest elsewhere, but at OpenDemocracy Robin Wilson has a particular assessment of the impending crisis involving Sinn Féin, the DUP, and those policing and justice powers. From the OpenDemocracy article
London and Dublin will renew pressure on the DUP in September, having lent on the Independent Monitoring Commission to produce an ‘ad hoc’ report that month which they hope will show the IRA has wound up its structure, having wound down its campaign. But the most senior Catholic policeman in Northern Ireland, Peter Sheridan, says this has yet to happen. And, indeed, with the current bemused mood among the ‘republican base’, and with the ‘dissident republicans’ gaining recruits, Gerry Adams and Mr McGuinness will have no desire to remove the last vestige of their authoritarian control—shaky even in west Belfast and south Armagh—or in so doing so to make finally clear, including to themselves, that no residual organisation is being retained for a political rainy day.
“But the most senior Catholic policeman in Northern Ireland, Peter Sheridan, says this has yet to happen”
Orde has said the same in today’s BT
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/dissidents-out-to-kill-police-warns-orde-13937396.html
Are dissident republican groups really getting a noticable influx of supporters?? I have read that before, but does disillusionment with SF’s results in the political process transfer into that result???
you bet it dose never saw things as bad for psf
How many standoffs can SFDUP atage before people realise that neither of them are necessary?
Who would ever have thought that McGuinness would have connived in the removal of the highest ruling body of the Republic?