British Prime Minister Tony Blair rarely misses an opportunity to tell the world in general and Iraqis in particular that democracy is the only way forward for a country plunged into violence and turmoil. The extraordinary revelations now coming out of Northern Ireland suggest not only that this is hypocrisy but also raise the possibility that Blair may once again have told the British Parliament a falsehood.
Twenty years ago, British intelligence pulled off a stunning coup when it suborned a senior member of Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Provisional IRA terrorist’s into working for them. The man, Denis Donaldson, went on to become the party’s administrator and doubtless told his secret masters much about the Sinn Fein’s close links to terrorism.
The 1998 Good Friday Agreement which finally ended Republican terrorism violence provided for a power-sharing executive in the British province, in which Sinn Fein politicians played a leading role. In October 2002, the executive collapsed amidst allegations that Sinn Fein had been spying on other parties within the Stormont Parliament building. Three leading Sinn Fein politicians were arrested, including Donaldson. Earlier this month the trial of these individuals collapsed when the prosecution announced that it would not be in the public interest to proceed. As a result of a still puzzling series of maneuvers, Donaldson then admitted that he had been a British spy and as a result, after making a public confession, alongside Sinn Fein leader and former terrorist Gerry Adams, was expelled from the party.
It now looks very much as if the whole Sinn Fein spy ring in Stormont was a fiction created by British intelligence. If this is true, then the secret arm of the British government deliberately brought about the end of the elected Northern Ireland assembly and the return of direct rule from London. That in itself is a scandal which says little about the Blair government’s respect for the democratic process on its own backdoor step.
More seriously though, when asked in Parliament why the trial of the three Sinn Fein men had collapsed, the British leader replied that he had no idea. Yet in the heightened state of security in Britain as elsewhere, Downing Street has probably never had such a close and intense relationship with its intelligence services. The only explanation if Blair really did not know what his spymasters were up to in Northern Ireland is that the British security services are out of government control. The record, however, shows that this British government seeks to be very much in control of all the levers of power. To many observers its seems inconceivable that Blair did not know that Donaldson was in fact working for London and therefore by extension, he had good reason to believe that the alleged Sinn Fein spy ring was a scam. That he therefore let the democratic power sharing assembly collapse suggests that this is what he wanted to happen. The further suspicion that Blair then misled Parliament is the stronger because he has done it before — over the business of Iraq’s WMD.
