British Plan for Ireland

Any informed person would have to laugh at White’s obvious parroting of standard British lines about Northern Ireland. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher has not been “studying the Ulster problem for most of her six years”; she has been studiously ignoring it, dumping ministers there who were out of favor.

The only reason she agreed to even the symbolic “concessions” of the new treaty was because of the threat that more fervent nationalists would gain power.

The Fine Gael and Social Democratic and Labor Party leaders were trying to shore up their nationalist credentials in a way that was painless--they were not wiling to follow stronger policies such as boycotts, peaceful direct actions, etc. Nor did they show great concern over such things as the repeal of the Flag and Emblems Act until Sinn Fein and Fianna Fail began gaining more ground in elections.

That Fine Gael and the SDLP are not serious about partition is shown by their lending credence to the notion that the Loyalists form a legitimate majority.

White provides evidence of the effectiveness of English propaganda when he refers to the “warring factions,” since Britain has fostered sectarianism on the part of the Protestants because it helped legitimize its military occupation. The Catholics for their part have not threatened the Protestants, though they have fought to protect themselves on occasion.

The simple fact is that anything short of reunification of Ireland will foster the war. The Protestants have absolutely nothing to fear in being part of a reunited country--that they live in a world of paranoid delusion is shown by their reactions to Thatcher’s crumbs of “concession” (for which she will get a lot of money from the United States and more “security” collaboration from this Vichy Irish regime).

STEPHEN SCOTT

Calabasas