Policing: a nasty dilemma

Unsurprisingly the vehemently anti-Sinn Fein Sunday Independent, uses its editorial slot to tell Sinn Fein it must recognise the PSNI. But some measure of the complications the party faces can be read in the defiant rebuttal from the Real IRA of appeals to withdraw threats towards Catholics serving on the District Policing Partnerships.

The IRA now faces a difficult, perhaps mulitple, dilemma. Should it remove the dissident IRA faction with comprehensive physical force? Or should it move constitutionally onside and throw in its lot with the PSNI? Or does it simply let Nationalist members of the DPPs endure the threats and let them collapse from the inside?

There are real dangers in all three actions. If it (and Sinn Fein) simply stand back and let the institutions take the heat it may exact a serious political cost in terms of future negotiations. It may also lose the kind of co-operation it has up till now almost taken for granted with the SDLP. The damage which may be caused to further policing reforms, which Sinn Fein favours, may also be counterproductive.

With the International Monitoring Board now limbering up for action, an out and out campaign may be difficult to engage in without again attracting the possibility of some form of political exclusion.

Which leaves the PSNI option. It would more than anything else to date represent a truly historic moment for both Sinn Fein and the IRA.
It would fit with a run-in to an autumn election, and the need to drive decisively into the moderate nationalist (SDLP) vote. It would certainly bring problems internally, but few commentators believe these are anywhere near as serious as they were before the Omagh bomb of August 1998.

Emotionally though, this last option represents a decisive break with the Northern republican oppositionalist past, in which many of the leadership have been immersed for all of their lives and of which they are emensely proud. It might also pose the question internally as to whether Sinn Fein yet has the appetite for the cut and thrust of real politics.

Whatever course is decided upon, the intensifying talk of elections can only increase the pressure for some form of action within the Republican movement.

Mick Fealty

Mick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty