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'How much harm do we permit the security services to inflict in order to keep us safe?' (Credit: Wikicommons)
For a spy, a job requiring furtive anonymity, James Bond always did have an unusual side-line in mass homicide. Apart from The Man with the Golden Gun, where Bond dispatches only the eponymous Scaramanga, his body count almost always hits double figures, peaking with 47 kills in the post-Cold War GoldenEye. Such brutality — and the cinematic thrills it supplies — is enabled by Bond’s “licence to kill”, a ruthless prerogative supposedly invested in him by the security services. Outside of the cinema, this could be regarded as an unrealistic fiction, the British public content that no government of theirs would allow its agents such discretion. Until last Friday that is, when it was revealed that — in the decidedly un-cinematic twilight of Eighties Belfast — a British spy had been operating with almost exactly this authorisation.
Last week, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) released its long-awaited report from Operation Kenova, a seven-year criminal investigation costing £38 million, into the activities of a British Army agent known in the media as “Stakeknife”. Rumours about this agent first surfaced at around the time of the Good Friday Agreement, in 1998. Stakeknife was said to be Freddie Scappaticci, a bricklayer from Belfast who was recruited by the army in the late Seventies. It was claimed that his intelligence had saved “countless” lives, even if it came at a terrible price.
The chilling allegation against Freddie Scappaticci was that during his time as an army agent he became a senior figure in the IRA’s infamous “Nutting Squad” (to “nut”, in Northern Ireland, is to shoot someone in the head). Part of Scappaticci’s job had been to find spies in the IRA and interrogate them, in other words hunting down people like him. If the Nutting Squad extracted a confession from a suspected agent, a recording was sent to the IRA Army Council where the likes of Martin McGuinness would decide if the victim was to live or die. Usually, Scappaticci recalled, the order that came back was: “take him out and give him it”. Newspaper reports suggested that Scappaticci might have been involved in as many as 50 murders. In itself, this was shocking. Far more disturbing was the idea that his army handlers knew about this and may have been complicit.
Operation Kenova was set up in 2016 to investigate the claims about Scappaticci and, if true, build a criminal case against him and his handlers. It was hoped that this would provide justice for the families of those who had been abducted and murdered by the Nutting Squad. Over the next seven years, a team of 72 detectives conducted 336 interviews, and went through more than 12,000 classified records from the archives of the local police, the army and MI5, in what will ultimately go down as the largest murder investigation in British history. But it led to no criminal prosecutions. That’s mainly because its principal target, Freddie Scappaticci, died before final charging decisions could be reached. The man leading Operation Kenova, Jon Boutcher, recently appointed Chief Constable of the PSNI, accepted that his investigation had failed to deliver justice. But he was adamant that it could still remedy the historical record, and provide lessons for future British governments.
The Operation Kenova report published last week was clear and uncompromising. On too many occasions, Boutcher wrote, Scappaticci’s handlers turned a blind eye to their agent’s horrific crimes. Some of these handlers, when questioned by Boutcher’s detectives, argued that Scappaticci’s intelligence had allowed them to save “hundreds” of lives. Boutcher strongly disagreed. After going through most of the written reports attributed to Stakeknife, he estimated that this intelligence saved no more than about 10 lives. Although his team did not find any direct evidence of Scappaticci taking someone’s life, they estimated that he was personally involved in as many as 14 killings. Based on this, Boutcher estimated that more lives were lost as a result of Stakeknife than were saved, a catastrophic inversion of the moral trolley problem that his handlers had been playing with real lives in Northern Ireland.
What’s interesting about this conclusion is that Boutcher did not criticise the initial decision to recruit Scappaticci. Nor did he state that this agent should have been dropped as soon as he joined the Nutting Squad. Instead, Boutcher argued this was a question of degree: that Scappaticci had been allowed to go too far and that his handlers had failed to provide rigorous oversight. And they did this because Stakeknife was a prize asset. The ultimate goal for anyone in the business of running spies is to recruit an enemy official as an agent. That’s been the case since the dawn of espionage, and it was true in Northern Ireland. Britain wanted agents deep inside the IRA, and would sacrifice at least some principles to get them there. But this wasn’t following some existing law, nor are there other well-known examples of agents from MI5 or MI6 being free to kill with impunity. And that’s why the Stakeknife story should make us fundamentally confront what it means for Britain’s operatives to pose as members of violent extremist organisations.
In Britain, we have historically maintained a respectful epistemological distance from our intelligence agencies. “Secrecy”, the historian Peter Hennessy wrote, “is as much a part of the English landscape as the Cotswolds.” As recently as the late Eighties, we indulged the idea that MI5 did not officially exist — during the Sixties, MI6’s headquarters still displayed a plaque saying it was the “Minimax Fire Extinguisher Company”. When it comes to the secret world, we have a history of looking the other way.
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SubscribeThis isn’t some rogue agent running around shooting people. The IRA were killing their own. Basically he infiltrated that part of the IRA that identified and shot their own people. And never got caught.
If this ‘chilling accusation’ is true, then that’s an exceptional piece of spy work. The IRA were bloody nasty people, and of course he couldn’t have done it if he’d had to rule himself out of doing any dirty work.
Ultimately MI5 had to weigh up what would be lost by removing Stakeknife from his position. Those poor souls were going to be murdered by the IRA whether he was there or not, so there wasn’t going to be more people killed by bending the rules and letting him be involved and staying where he was. However by removing him then there was a real possibility others would have lost their lives through the lack of intelligence he was providing.
As the article says, if you prohibit spies from partaking in criminal activity then you render them entirely useless
I’m afraid I find the details too damning to agree with you.
Two of the men MI5 knew were about to be targeted but forbore to warn included RUC Superintendant Bob Buchanan, a married father of two young boys and RUC Chief Superintendent Harry Breen, also a married father of two. Breen was executed face down after being incapacitated, while holding a white handkerchief. The IRA men drove off cheering according to local witnesses.
They had been allowed to travel to Dundalk in the Republic of Ireland to meet with a unit of the Gardai that MI5 knew was in cahoots with the IRA.
They had to pass along the Edenappa road which was the very heart of ‘Bandit Country’ in South Armagh. Thanks to Scappatici Military intelligence knew there would be an ambush waiting for them. Mr. James Molyneaux, the MP for Lagan Valley asked, in the parliamentary debate which followed the murder –
“[Was] it necessary to meet in Dundalk, of all places? It is generally recognised to be the garrison town and operational base of the IRA. If such meetings and consultations serve any useful purpose, would it not be safer to meet here in London? After all, it is only 50 minutes’ flying time away for both forces”
Was it necessary? We may still ask. When twenty-odd years after the murder we beheld our late Queen compelled by her political advisors to press the hand of friendship with IRA Commander and Stormont Deputy First Minister, Martin McGuinness at the Lyric Theatre in Belfast. Was it really necessary?
This was 1989?
What was the purpose of meeting “a unit of the Gardai that MI5 knew was in cahoots with the IRA”?
That’s what makes it even worse, to my mind. Under the 1985 Anglo Irish Agreement the RUC was compelled by Parliament to engage in cross border ‘consultations’ with the Gardai about security. Westminster ordered them to go.
One can only imagine what those loyal, hard bitten RUC veterans of the Nationalist insurgency felt as they drove south into ‘enemy territory’. Could they conceive they might to be sacrificed to preserve the life of an informer? The courage is unimaginable. Certainly there is no question now that Scappatici and MI5 knew what awaited them.
Kipling was in his prophetic mood when he wrote of –
“The Faith in which we stand,
The laws we made and guard,
Our honour, lives, and land
Are given for reward
To Murder done by night,
To Treason taught by day,
To folly, sloth, and spite,
And we are thrust away.
The blood our fathers spilt,
Our love, our toils, our pains,
Are counted us for guilt,
And only bind our chains.
Before an Empire’s eyes
The traitor claims his price.
What need of further lies?
We are the sacrifice.”
Occasionally I feel that it would have been far better for us all, including the UK Establishment, if the Brighton Bombers had succeeded.
It was just the sort of cathartic shock that the country needed to pull it out of its smug, supine, post-war stupor, and would have been the greatest political assassination since that of Gaius Julius Caesar some two thousands years before.
However it would very regrettably have meant the loss of Lady Thatcher, undoubtedly our finest post-war Prime Minister well before her time, so I confine my musings to my Spaniels, who make no comment.
Sadly, the Brighton bombers did “succeed”. 5 dead and 31 wounded. It also effectively ended Norman Tebbit’s career.
You do wonder if this sort of *real history* gets taught in our schools these days. We are in danger of forgetting just how awful Northern Irish terrorism (in all its forms) was. And how there was never any excuse for it. On any side.
But where do you stop?
Would it be ‘kosher’ for example to discuss the atrocities carried out by Zionists during the British Palestine Mandate? Or perhaps the horrors of Mau Mau?
‘Real history’ as you call it, is just too REAL.
Yes perfectly Kosher so long as you also mention the 1939 White Paper on Palestine that excluded 99.99% of European Jews from seeking refuge in Palestine –when no other part of the British Empire was open to them, and neither were the US, Canada, Argentina, Brazil, Chile…
I wanted to know what Charles Stanhope would say.
Martin McGuinness said ” Roy Mason kicked the s… out of us and we were three weeks from being defeated. ” Labour lost the 1979 election. Mason was a miner and his deputy was Don Cannon a former guards NCO. At a meeting after some PIRA outrage, Mason slammed his fist on the table and said ” The gloves come off “. Roy Mason had been carried three times on a stretcher from a mine due to accidents so he was a brave and tough man.
Roy Mason – Wikipedia
Don Concannon | Labour | The Guardian
John Major was bank clerk, Mason and Concannon were miners, the latter a Guards NCO who served in Palestine in 1947. As Cheshire VC, DSO Two Bars, DFC said in his interview when Churchill became Prime Minister and Harris C in C Bomber command, there was an increase in purpose an urgency. He said the mark of a great leader is that their spirit is felt through the organisation. What was the spirit of the Secretaries of Northern Ireland and John Major ?
As the article says, if you act on every piece of intelligence then you soon blow the cover of your operatives, much like with the enigma code they unfortunately sacrificed some in order to save others. We can argue about whether it’s better in the long run to do this but I’m glad I’m not the one that has to make that call
‘The long run’ must now include the knowledge that IRA/Sinn Fein are effectively in charge in Ulster and McGuinness and Adams became an exclave-of-convenience of the British Establishment.
Was that worth the life of even two loyal, decent, simple servants of the Crown?
Recent revelations about the role of MI5 in Ulster show that certain agents were not free of the personal vanity which attends upon being a ‘dealmaker’ in high politics. They enjoyed the prestige of stewarding British and Irish affairs, free from any and all oversight. This included the meeting in 1994, shortly after the Warrington Bombing which killed two children. The minutes of the meeting were recently released by Sinn Fein/IRA and include a key MI5 agent telling the leaders of the IRA that “The final solution is union… this island will be as one.”
The Agent, named Robert said of the meeting – “Yes, I misled the prime minister so I misled the Queen as well..”
This is the same organisation which ‘handled’ Stakeknife. That must be borne in mind.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-65038587
If the likes of Martin McGuinness instructed Scappaticci to “take him out and give him it”, the responsibility for those murders is theirs, not the British government’s. Scappaticci’s 14 (at least) murders would have happened anyway; the lives his information may have saved were a net credit. A criminal informant not actually involved in any crime is useless. Refusing to infiltrate criminal organisations in order to avoid dealing with nasty people would be an abdication of responsibility. It was because the IRA was going nowhere militarily in the early 1990s – losing popular credibility and riddled with informers – that they embraced the peace process. The tragedy is, young Irish people have subsequently been spoon fed a history of the Troubles which cherrypicks killings by the security forces and filters out the far greater level of murder and maiming by Republican paramilitaries.
“the responsibility for those murders is theirs, not the British government’s. Scappaticci’s 14 (at least) murders would have happened anyway”.
The drug dealer’s defence is not convincing: the responsibility for any of those murders is the IRA’s and the British Government’s and anyone else’s who took part, regardless of motivation, unless they were coerced.
Why are we “beating ourselves up” over this? We were fighting a very nasty little war and given the restraints we were under did a remarkable job. People such Scappaticci were essential to that success. like it or not.
I am always slightly irritated by the double standards this sort of story always reveals. For example Mossad are reputed to executed some three thousand targeted assassinations since 1948 and yet hardly a squeak is heard. Is Mr Netanyahu on his way to The Hague?…Certainly not.
Quite. We didn’t choose to fight a dirty war. The IRA did. Somehow they’re never the guilty ones. And the psychopaths and criminal thugs amongst them – a significant proportion of the IRA – are now freely walking the streets with their “comfort letters”.
For once, I am with you Charles. It’s really hard to believe that British paratroopers who didn’t choose this conflict were really worse or more dangerous men or posed any threat to the general public. Yet these are the ones who are prosecuted.
Under the GFA we released over 400 of these killers from long term imprisonment. Each was given a £10,000**‘resettlement grant’, to soothe their passage back into communal life.
Fortunately quite a few removed themselves from the scene by alcoholism, a form of Darwinian self-selection.
If I may correct you, (The Paras) are NOT being prosecuted but PERSECUTED, to the eternal shame of the wretched Northern Ireland Judiciary.
(* Good Friday Agreement.)
(**In 1998 money.)
Does this not give you pause for thought with regards to your first comment?
You might be tempted concede that the ‘We’ you have in mind has changed out of all recognition since Scappatici was recruited and permitted his extraordinary sanction by Her Majesty’s Military Intelligence in 1978.
Since then HMG has surrendered to the men of violence in Ulster and, growing used to the licence, has instead turned her dirty tricks and extra-legal tools of repression against domestic dissent.
Was it Hannah Arendt who first noticed that such tools, learned at the imperial frontier, invariably return with the troopships and become accepted practice at home?
Who knows what milder forms of dissent villains such as Scappaticci and organisations such as MI5 and the Special Demonstartion Squad will be commisioned to undermine in the future – and what ‘success’ might look like to their handlers.
‘We’ have certainly certainly changed and not for the better. In fact we seem to have become enfeebled and have forgotten how to speak with the voice of authority.
The recent COVID debacle proved beyond doubt that ‘we’ have become pathetically supine, mawkish and revoltingly sentimental.
Arendt’s an interesting figure and I wonder what she would have made of NI. As I recall she was rather strident in her criticism of what she regarded as “untermenschen”.
Off course the frontier of Empire was originally Ireland so no need for lessons from the Orient etc. I admire your faith in M15.
I had no idea we’d actually paid them a bounty. Shocking.
I needn’t ask what the “resettlement grants” for any crippled or traumatised British soliders who’d served in NI were.
At the time the US “war on terror” was launched in 2001, I did remark that the only difference between the Al Qaeda terrorists and the Northern Irish ones was that the NI ones actually had recourse to political change (they even had MPs ! they had always had MPs …), whereas anyone wanting political change in Saudi Arabia had very few options. Not excusing Al Qaeda in any way. Just pointing out the most obvious difference, which the Americans chose to ignore (and continued to do so).
Shortly after the 9/11 business I heard an American, a Bostonian I think, say “there are two types of terrorists, BAD like Al Qaeda and GOOD like the IRA”.
Sadly as you so correctly say, ‘they’ still think like this.
It’s unbelievable, isn’t it ?
Neither Republicans nor Unionists ever had any excuse for terrorism. There was always a political route. They chose violence. And criminality. Nothing whatever “noble” about what they did.
Even got a couple of them into the House of Lords!
If one looks at bread, the yeast, raising ingredient, is a small proportion of the total loaf. One can change the flour quite a lot and it makes little difference but one only has to reduce the yeast by a few grammes and the bread does not rise. I think in Britain much of the raising ingredient was killed in WW2, emigrated or worked for British companies overseas.
Consequently if one looks at politicians, Civil Service, Academics, Intellectuals, Journalists, actors, directors, The Arts, Lawyers, all those who influence public opinion were largely defeatest in outlook and lacked the buccaneering and fighting spirit.
When it came to the Civil Service, the historian C Northcote Parkinson said the best went overseas and the dregs stayed in Whitehall. Pete Shore MP said the FCO had nervous break down after Suez in 1956.
The reason why we were able to mount the Falklands Campaign was the Head of the Armed forces had been on the Malta Convoy Operation Pedestal.
Terence Lewin – Wikipedia
I lived in the US when 9/11 happened. Over the past few years I had constantly heard comments from “Irish” Americans about how the IRA were “freedom fighters” – many had a romantic view of Ireland from watching Braveheart (no, really!). Most had only a tenuous connection to Ireland, and often turned out to Protestant (again, no really!).
After the planes hit, I never heard that sort of talk again.
One of the few positive side effects of 9/11.
Well you’ve now got GAZA to worry about.
That is not the half of it. The British Government funded businesses for them to the tune of millions in order to buy them off.
And still do under the Barnett Formula.
I think we understimate the lack of willingness by Bair to defeat the PIRA due to ther number of Labour MPs who are of Irish descent. By 1997 The UK was well on the way to defeat the PIRA and then Blair restrained operations.
20th July 1982 the IRA bombed the Queen’s Life Guard as they rode through Hyde Park to take up their duties in Whitehall. Four men and seven horses were killed, and many more were injured. Two hours later a second device detonated in Regent’s Park where the Band of the Royal Green Jackets were performing a concert. Remote detonations of course. Real heroes.
IRA = I RAN AWAY!
Freddie Scappaticci wasn’t recruited to infiltrate the PIRA, he was an IRA terrorist who was turned by the security forces. Already had blood on his hands.
Surely the main point is that the British army and the security services forced the IRA to surrender by killing, jailing or turning all their key members. Eventually they were left with only Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams who (being cowards) opted to save their own skins, give up their guns and submit to the British. All the killings in Northern Ireland from 1969- 1998 are the responsibility of the PIRA and its offshoots. They started the war, we finished it.
Precisely, but sadly thanks to US support via NORAID, the Kennedy clan and legions of other “Plastics Paddies” they will continue to whinge about it “until the cows come home”.
What we really need is an Anglo-American voting block in the USA. I believe it is the largest group in the country but the one least likely for people to self-identify with.
Well there used to be the WASPS, mainly in New England as I recall. Perhaps, rather like us they “don’t want to make a fuss”?
Not to forget the famous DAR*!
(*Daughters of the American Revolution.)
Dad said they were very hospitable when they arrived in the USA after surviving an Atlantic Convoy, especially before the USA entered the war.
Including Bloody Sunday? Sending paras to police a civil rights march and opening fire on the marchers?
Including all the loyalist and RUC killings aided and abetted by the British army? The Miami Showband, which had both Catholic and Protestant members, slaughtered by UVF and encouraged by MI5?
Prompted the UVF to write to the Irish government at the time that the British secret service was pushing this? Lots and lots of examples of the British forces being just as ruthless with civilians as the PIRA.
I think you’ll find it’s a lot more complex than your worldview. I’m not defending the PIRA, they have an appalling record, and would never vote Sinn Féin, but this is just not accurate.
Sadly it’s an arrogant British mentality that you “brought civilisation to the world” and couldn’t possibly have ever done anything wrong while the reality of the history of your nearest neighbour tells a different story.
Yes every single one was the fault of the IRA and their friends. The British army would not have been in NI had they not started their war. The UVF would have fizzled out if the IRA hadn’t started killing people. They had already been outlawed in 1966 and their leader already serving 20 years for murder.
If the PIRA hadn’t split and taken up arms, devolution would have come to NI just as it has to Wales and Scotland – probably earlier given the tensions. Thousands of people would have been saved from grief, injury and death. Several generations of Ulstermen and Irishmen would not have degenerated into violent criminals.
Young people never realise that political violence is always a bad thing and should be avoided at all costs no matter how much the blood is up.
An excellent summary, thank you.
Northern Ireland was an apartheid state. Devolution would have made NI worse, not better.
Local council voting depended on owning property, and owning multiple properties meant multiple votes. Most multiple property owners were loyalist due to centuries of plantations. These local councils then of course allocated public housing to loyalists – reinforcing the cycle. And of course constituencies were hopelessly gerrymandered to get loyalist candidates elected to Stormont and Westminister. This was one of the main sticking points of the civil rights marches, one of which ended up being fired on and murdered by paras on Bloody Sunday.
This of course taught some of the previously pacifist protestors that the bomb and the bullet was the only language the British would understand. Was a brilliant recruitment campaign for the PIRA. Before then the SDLP had the majority of Republican support in NI – afterwards there was no chance of that anymore.
Other events like the framing of the Birmingham 6 and the Guildford 4 taught Republicans in NI that there could be no justice expected from the British establishment.
That’s also why Brexit is a disaster for NI by the way. The blurring of tribal identities is much harder now than it was when ROI and UK were both part of the EU. And a united ireland will be a massive headache for the Dublin government.
Most Englishmen of my acquaintance are throughly sick and tired of NI and cannot comprehend why we have not jettisoned this expensive, ever needy, embarrassing parasitic province.
The sooner the Republic takes it off our hands the better. To hell with the Union, it’s been half broken since at least 1922, so let us put it out of Its misery for once and for all.
Sadly we will probably NOT be able to do the same with Scotland.
Matt, you do, of course, realise that Ulster is one of the 4 provinces that make up the whole island of Ireland – an Ulsterman is an Irish man, although many prefer to exercise their right to identify as British.
Yes of course you are right Damian. I will be more careful about that in the future. Thanks.
CENSORED.
Rather like Gaza today, all 15,000 of those Civil Rights illegal marchers on ‘Bloody Sunday’* (BS) were either passive or active members of the IRA. Perhaps 99.9% Passive and 0.1 Active.
They were determined to offer “two fingers to the Crown” and were treated accordingly.
Incidentally by the time of BS, 60 members of the Security Services had been murdered by the IRA, including the the three young Sc*tch lads of the RHF**at Ligoniel, the youngest of whom was 17.
(*For some Good Sunday.)
(**Royal Highland Fusiliers.)
Mow them all down, eh Charlie?
You would get on very well with some of the PIRA – they have exactly the same attitudes to British citizens. They are all imperialist murderers in their eyes. Two sides of the same coin.
Do pay attention. No not “mow them all down”, otherwise we would have had another GAZA on our hands.
In fact a mere 107* rounds were fired obtaining about 30 hits, rather poor shooting under the circumstances it must be said.
As for PIRA** recruiting that had been well under way for at least a year, and in the case of Birmingham and Guildford they shouldn’t have been bombing innocent civilians here anyway.
If ‘We’ had been as bloodthirsty as you suggest we could easily have retaliated and blown the guts out of Limerick, Cork and Galway. As it was Dublin got at least one good hammering did it not?
(*The late Lieutenant N accidentally lost the 108th round mentioned in the Saville Inquiry.)
(**Provisional IRA.)
A former SAS soldier told me that under Thatcher they were sent over the border. A number of senior PIRA woke up to find a card saying ” The Boys are back”.
If Britain had wanted to, we could have executed the top three tiers of the PIRA in 24 hours; we did not.
It would appear that at times a certain degree of violence was accepted.
In the beginning of the troubles, intelligence was run by SIS. The Security Service insisted they take over, resulting in agents being blown and killed. The RUC then developed Special Branch, The Army 14 Intelligence Unit who worked with SAS/SBS. The SAS were not involved in N Ireland until 1976 which was part of the problem. Between 1968 and 1976 there were no British organisations with the skills to defeat the violence instigate by the PIRA. From 1968, the KGB/GRU trained various organisations in violent subversion – PLO, Black September, Red Army Faction, PIRA , Red Brigade, ETA, Action Directe, Z2 in the Ukraine and Middle East. Explosives and weapons were provided by Czechoslovakia, money from NORAID and training by KGB/GRU which was why the PIRA capabilities increased so dramatically post 1968.
We defeated the communist in Malaya because Templer was appointed in 1950 to run the campaign. No such person was appointed to run the camapign in Ulster, so hence the problems. Templer realised d two vital ingrtedients were needed, intelligence on terrorists supplied by Special Branch and highly experienced NCOs and officers with Comando/Special Forces experience, quality not quantity. In days of Empire counter terrorism was run by Police Special Branch who had basically officer standards of entry, not MI5. The special Branch were then given military close quarter combat training by ex Commandos/SF in Malaya.
Compare the strides in defeating the Communists in Malaya between 1948 ( start of campaign ) and 1956 and N Ireland between 1968- 1976. British capability in 1976 was that of our capability on 1950, when Templer took over. Attlee and Bevin 1948 to 1951, were far more competent than Wilson and Heath. There is an Indian saying ” What could have been stopped by 300 in the morning could not be stopped by 3000 in the afternoon “. By 1974 we well into the afternoon.
Gerald Templer – Wikipedia
Utterly amazing
The so called cowards by way Of Adams
And McGuiness
Had the intelligence to manoeuvrer the Brits into a Internationally binding Good Friday agreement that without any doubt
Shall lead to reunification of NI with the ROI
So in terms of war not only actually win it but also won the peace and were clever enough to realise to ensure that the last battle in the form of Good Friday
Ensured that the result would be what their intention always was
A fine example of which was Brexit and the UK was firmly pushed by All to accept that never shall their be a border
On the mainland of Ireland
The IRA made it very plain to all parties that any attempt to establish any form of Border on the mainland would immediately result in them reforming and preventing such
Study their History they have a habit of disbanding then reforming when circumstances change to suit prevention
Of reunification
Furthermore more a few leading Tories canvassed for The ROI to be starved into
Submission and given the disgusting history of the famine
Such resulted in the other 26 remaining
EU members consolidating behind the ROI and becoming ultra tough with the UK for the remainder of Brexit negotiations
Is that a poem?
Oh my you have my sympathies
With regards your Delusional state
As Biden told a BBC reporter upon his election victory
Ah I see you British and I being of Irish origin I all too well aware of your ways
My Spaniels are more Irish than Biden.
Be kind to Biden cause he the only one that can sanction the Launch of your leased Trident missiles that I do believe since 2016 have a 100 % fail rate upon launch
Luckily for HM Submariner’s on board the launch platform that the Missiles
We’re not armed otherwise they would be toast
Wonder what that does for the current crews morale and the effect upon recruitment
Ah but alas those with suicidal tendencies now have a carrer path to
Follow
US technical failure, perhaps we should have purchased from the French?
Problem for you is that England is so bankrupt and technically deficient
For building of such technology
Unlike N.Korea Iran, India ,Japan , China , Russia , France soon to be joined by Pakistan
Except England (I assume you mean the UK) is neither “bankrupt” not “technically deficient”. There are two countries that make up almost all the top-rated universities in the world – the USA and UK. And in this case, the UK really does mean England.
You do come up with some rubbish.
Good points. The reality is that top level R and D is concentrated in a few firms and universities which if one is not part of , one is totally clueless. for example there is approximately 100,000 in the F1 based in the UK because we can design and make the one off parts needed. Cambridge, Imperial, Oxford, UCL, Kings, Sanger Institute, Francis Crick Institute, Rolls Royce, Arup, Mott Macdonald, McClaren, lead the World.
Furthermore
Just await till the Tricolour flies proudly flies alongside the EU flag from
Stormont castle and Belfast City Hall
Go study the Economics of both the ROI and UK and you will soon see why as Britain becomes poorer and poorer whilst the ROI surges ahead
Economically and Productivity gains
Other than the NI demographics now in a Catholic majority
Tis ” The Economy Stupid ”
That shall be the end of and a hammer blow to British occupation
In The Island of Ireland for once and all
And for good measure if you take
GDP / head of population and factor in PPP ( you go see what PPP means )
Then the ROI is the richest country globally with a fig
of $ 138,400 / citizen
I shall not embarrass you with what the UK data is
Such might just bring about suicidal thoughts
Have you been to Ireland recently Doyle old fruit?
If you haven’t outside the carbuncle that is Dublin, nothing has really changed.
Many a time I have enjoyed the hospitality of my Celtic brothers in Dublin and Ireland
Strongly suggest you remove the blinkers if and when you visit
Over the years whilst partaking of Irish
Craic I am most surprised at the increasing number of ROI citizens that actually do not want reunification
Stating in main but not entirely exclusive to the poor deprived ill educated protestant working class
Who they amongst much else they consider them to be dangerous , lazy , dirty , untrustworthy and most importantly that the costs to the ROI
Would be considerable in integrating
Into The Republic
And You Brits are welcome to them
You created the problems you solve them
Are you Sc*tch by any chance Doyle old fruit? It may explain your appalling syntax.
I have heard of Protestant Ulstermen being described as many things but NEVER as “lazy & dirty”, are you sure you are not dreaming of Glasgow?
Are you completely unable to understand what is put in front of you
Where did I refer to Protestant Ulstermen
As for the use of that weasel language English I care not with regards it’s grammar etc.
Irish Gaelic created the word Tory
By chance do you know what it’s actual meaning is
Both Irish and Scot,s Gaelic have a unique and special way with words
E.G Scot’s Gaelic has 33 words for grandmother each one describing with just one word exactly what she looks like and immediately leaving a firm visual imprint upon your thoughts
English requires many joined up words sometimes whole paragraphs
In order to attain the same level of effective communication
Why write a book if a chapter suffice
Why a chapter if a page suffice
Why a page if a paragraph suffice
Why a paragraph if a single line suffice
Why a line if just one word suffice
What wrong with your I-pad and or your typing Doyle old fruit?
I do not ‘ Play cricket old Chap ‘
Bad luck, you might enjoy it.
May I suggest you take up Shinty
If Boeing can execute a whistleblower, just imagine the crimes our governments commit. No, on second thought, don’t. You won’t be able to get out of bed.
Operation Kenova did not consider Scapaticci’s role in the murder of Robert Bradford MP who was investigating Kincora at the time … I wonder why? https://coverthistory.ie/2024/03/09/scappaticci-mi5-and-the-murder-of-a-westminster-mp-the-stench-of-death-associated-with-the-kincora-scandal-is-heady-by-david-burke/
Just the “tip of the iceberg” as you well know.