ANALYSIS:BRITS OUT is the simple and simplistic objective of dissident republican paramilitaries.
Their view is so narrow and so removed from how politics now works in Northern Ireland that it means the only real way to tackle them is through good policing and intelligence work on both sides of the Border.
There was an interesting row in the Northern Assembly yesterday in the aftermath of the bombing that demonstrated both a fundamentalist and a modern face of republicanism – and also illustrated some republican revisionism.
Sinn Féin Assembly member and former IRA bomber Martina Anderson from Derry sought to make a distinction between what the Provisional IRA did over the course of the Troubles and what the dissidents are doing now. She contended that the Provisional IRA only engaged in violence when there was no alternative.
Sinn Féin and the IRA have embraced the new political dispensation, yet it can hardly be denied that the dissidents are now solidly rooted in the place republicanism was anchored through much of the conflict. Brits Out – a message that used to be emblazoned on the side of Black Mountain for visitors coming to Belfast during the Troubles – is also their old and stark message, and they make no bones about it.
The fact that upwards of 900,000 or so unionist people living on this island see themselves as British cuts no ice with them, as it now does with modern Sinn Féin.
It’s hard to have a productive political discussion with Brits Out groups because effectively they don’t believe in politics. Intermediaries at different levels have tested the waters with some of the dissidents, particularly in Derry, just as they successfully did in the past with Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, but have achieved no purchase.
They are continuing their work regardless, in the hope that some of the dissident leaders might widen their perspective, or that at least they might help to dissuade others, particularly young people, from being ensnared by the lure of fundamentalist republicanism.
The focus consequently is on limiting the effects of the dissidents through security measures.
While the threat and level of dissident activity has increased there have been security successes, as well, with more arrests and people charged this year than in previous years – this year the PSNI arrested 169 people and charged 59 with dissident crimes, while the Garda arrested over 50 people and charged 22. There are some 100 dissidents in prisons in the North and South.
But it is an unremitting battle. Security and intelligence sources estimate that there are now some 600 people linked to the dissident paramilitaries with a “small hard core” prepared to plant and detonate the bombs or carry out the gun attacks.
The Real IRA was formed in 1998 but later split into two factions – those still aligned with former leader Michael McKevitt, who is in prison for directing terrorism, and another Co Louth-based republican, and those tied in with Liam Campbell, who is in custody in Northern Ireland facing extradition to Lithuania on arms smuggling charges. All groups arrogate on to themselves the Irish Army’s “Óglaigh na hÉireann” (ONH) title. The ONH label generally is ascribed to the McKevitt Real IRA faction.
The vast majority of people oppose the dissidents’ regressive Brits Out agenda and what they are doing. In the meantime, the dissident threat has to be managed.
The security services – through good police work, intelligence and infiltration – must stay ahead of them until they somehow, sometime, as Martin McGuinness said yesterday, see the futility of their actions.