Ignorance By Design
“Will nobody rid me of this turbulent priest?”
Attributed to King Henry II ~ Prior to the murder of Archbishop Thomas Becket
Former British Prime Minister John Major told the House of Commons in November 1993 that it would turn his stomach if he held face to face talks with representatives of the IRA. Later that same month it emerged that the British government had been engaged in secret negotiations with the IRA (You can read a newspaper article about the disclosure HERE).
Claim and counter-claim followed the revelation. The fog of an information war enveloped those who had been involved in the secret exchanges. The public and indeed most people in parliament were left to wonder if the talks had been authorised at the highest level of government. Was there a whiff of hypocrisy or plausible deniability in the air? Had the Prime Minister known about the secret communication with the IRA and if so, had the knowledge of it made him feel a little queasy?
Over eight hundred years earlier, King Henry II supposedly voiced his exasperation regarding a troublesome Archbishop. The unfortunate Archbishop was subsequently killed in December 1170 by four knights who travelled to Canterbury Cathedral. King Henry of course had only been thinking out loud and – as far as we know – hadn’t given anyone direct orders to kill Thomas Becket. There was no signed scroll with a red wax seal, to link the King to the Archbishop’s murder.
Centuries later on the opposite side of the Atlantic, it was revealed by the Church Committee in the US Senate, that the Central Intelligence Agency had tried on at least eight occasions between 1960 and 1965 to assassinate the Cuban leader Fidel Castro. Some of these CIA assassination plots involved the assistance of senior figures in the Mafia. Did the CIA initiate these plots with or without the authorisation of President Kennedy? Was it perhaps another King Henry moment, with no incriminating audit trail?
Politicians whilst in government and also the various officials that surround them like a grey suited praetorian guard, understand and appreciate the value of what people involved in intelligence gathering or covert operations can achieve. The trouble is that those in political power can be a little skittish when asked to put their name on a document that will potentially become part of an audit trail that leads back to them.
When politicians are put in a position of having to personally sanction a covert action, by putting their name to an order, their career can flash before their eyes during a political near death experience. They are aware of the potential benefits of the covert action, not least of all the reflected glory if things go according to plan, but they can get a little wobbly when they pause to consider the prospect of being linked to something in the news headlines, that has a name with the suffix ‘gate’.
An example of this type of political skittishness can be found in a previous blog (You can read it HERE), that details how the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) requested the government in 1987, to provide updated guidelines and legislation for the handling of agents operating inside terrorist groups. The RUC wanted the government to provide clarity about handling the agents. At the time, police officers and the agents that had been recruited, often felt like they were operating in a legal grey area. This was referred to in a Police Ombudsman’s report that stated:
“It is evident that most senior RUC officers, including the Chief Constable, knew that colleagues involved in the authorisation and management of informants felt exposed and vulnerable. This was why clarity, in the form of appropriate legislation and/or guidance, was sought from the British Government.“
The sought-after guidelines and legislation were not provided to the RUC and an internal Northern Ireland Office (NIO) memo from May 1987, helps to explain why neither materialised. The Ombudsman’s report stated:
“An internal NIO minute to the Permanent Under Secretary, dated 18 May 1987, however, stated that ‘As we may well wish to see a rather different method for reviewing the guidance, it will suit us if the process set in train by the RUC makes fairly slow progress, but it would not be wise to take any steps at this juncture to halt it; we should simply desist from hastening it.“
In March 1992, Sir John Blelloch carried out a review of recruitment and agent handling of informants by the military in Northern Ireland. This also took into account the work of the RUC and MI5. The Ombudsman’s report included a quote from a legal advisor in MI5 at the time:
“Blelloch has also indicated that he is not sure that Ministers (particularly the Home Secretary) will approve the Guidelines for fear that they may involve them in allegations of conspiratorial criminality. He is, however, prepared to endorse the Guidelines in his report.“
This reluctance to approve the guidelines is an example of a politician seeing his career flash before his eyes. As they climb the greasy political pole, they can become increasingly risk averse. They know that they are always one bad decision away from being moved in a cabinet reshuffle, or in a worse case scenario, their career will implode and they will be ‘spending more time with their family’, with the possibility of a grilling by a House of Commons select committee, or at a public inquiry.
The Ombudsman’s report also commented on the views expressed in a summary sent to the then Secretary of State, about the findings of an inter-departmental working group in late 1992:
“The present situation is not satisfactory. The existing law appears to leave the Agents, Handlers, and others involved in the intelligence process, including Ministers, unduly exposed. This has practical drawbacks (in terms of our ability to run agents, who are vital to our work against terrorism) as well as political and ethical ones. There is much that can be done, and should be done on a non-statutory basis to improve matters…“
Even though it was known that agent handling was a vital part of the counter-terrorism strategy and that agents, handlers and ministers were left feeling exposed by the lack of clarity, the government foot dragging continued for years. People at the highest level of government wanted the intelligence product but didn’t want to officially sanction how it was acquired, in case the legality of handling agents inside terrorist groups was ever tested in court.
In 2012, Sir Desmond de Silva QC commented on this matter in a report:
“It is absolutely clear that there was no adequate Agent handling guidance or direction whatsoever in the late 1980s. The 1969 Home Office Guidelines had not been designed for a counterterrorism situation and had, rightly, been discarded…In such circumstances the UK Government had a duty to provide an effective statutory framework and clear policy direction. The issue was considered at Cabinet level and Government Ministers were clearly aware that Agents were being handled in Northern Ireland without reference to any adequate guidelines because no such framework existed. Ministers nonetheless continued to place a high priority on pursuing an intelligence led approach to the terrorist threat. What was required was a clear statutory recognition that agents must be run at the heart of terrorist groups; some recognised limits as to the extent to which agents could become involved in criminal enterprises; and a rigorous regulatory framework to prevent abuse.“
Sir Desmond de Silva then commented upon the government inaction, despite requests by the RUC for clarity in new guidelines and legislation. Sir Desmond said that there was a:
“…wilful and abject failure by the UK government to put in place adequate guidance and regulation for the running of agents.“
Although the RUC was doing its best to manage the handling of agents in a policing and security environment that was very different to 1969, it is obvious from Sir Desmond de Silva’s comment that the government was wilfully failing to provide the RUC and indeed the military, with the type of guidance and legal clarity they needed and wanted.
The RUC requested new guidelines and legislation in 1987. Over three decades later in 2021, the government successfully passed legislation on the subject of handling informers and the authorisation of criminal activity. It is called the ‘Covert Human Sources (Criminal Conduct) Act 2021′. This was over two decades after the signing of the Belfast / Good Friday Agreement.
Making Sausages
“Laws are like sausages. It is best not to see them being made.”
Otto von Bismark
Bismark likened the machinations that occur during the passing of legislation, to the making of sausages. The horse trading and compromises go on behind the scenes. All that the public gets to see is the end product; the legislative sausages.
To some extent, countering terrorism or what occurs on a battlefield in time of war, are similar to the production of sausages or the passing of legislation. The public may appreciate the benefits but they don’t see much of the process that produced the end result. At times they might think they want to know, a natural curiosity might develop but history tells us that when the public glimpse behind the curtain and see the stark reality, they don’t enjoy the experience. For example, people love to find a bargain when they are out shopping but their trip to the local mall would not be enhanced if they knew how their consumer goods remained so affordable after being produced in the Far-East and shipped half the way across the globe. Ignorance is bliss.
The peace process in Northern Ireland is an example of how some politicians, political commentators in the media and of course a section of the general public, express their support for the metaphorical sausages, but they opt to ignore the reality of how those peace process sausages were produced. They much prefer a narrative involving political drama, perhaps a Northern Ireland version of the TV show ‘The West Wing’, but without the stirring soundtrack. What some of them don’t want to acknowledge is what actually produced the environment in which the peace process became possible.
After years of the IRA attempting to bring about a united Ireland through the use of violence, they were forced to call a ceasefire, enter into political dialogue and decommission weapons, because they had lost the intelligence war.
An important part of the intelligence war during the Troubles was the use of agents operating inside Republican and Loyalist terrorist groups. The reality of this is of course the recruitment of agents who had to participate in criminality, whilst they were gathering intelligence. This is obviously an unpleasant thought and for some people it is morally troubling. It’s the part of the sausage making process that some people would prefer not to see and when they are forced to look, they express outrage, complain and criticise, but yet without the tough decisions that others had to make, the agent handling, surveillance, covert operations and all the rest, there wouldn’t have been a peace process.
Before rushing to judgement about the morality of handling agents in terrorist groups, it would be prudent to firstly examine the context in which this was occurring.
In recent years and particularly over the past week, people have indulged in a considerable amount of self-righteous commentary, faux outrage, hypocrisy and public hand-wringing, over the investigation into the activities of an agent inside the IRA, known as ‘Stakeknife’. Although not named last week in the Op Kenova interim report, everyone now knows that ‘Stakeknife’ was in fact Freddie Scappaticci. He was in the IRA for over two decades and for a number of those years was a member of the IRA’s ‘Internal Security Unit’ (ISU).
Whilst watching the tsunami of virtue signalling and condemnation, it occurred to me that behind all of this, was a rather convenient mental disconnect. The people who rushed to condemn the security forces, or claim that Scappaticci was a ‘monster’ created by the British State, were rather muted about Freddie’s friends in the IRA. They do know however, that Freddie Scappaticci was taking his orders from senior members of the IRA, some of whom are well known individuals, such as the late Martin McGuinness.
If Scappaticci was a ‘monster’, what does that say about people such as Martin McGuinness, who was Scappaticci’s ‘Officer Commanding’ (OC) in the IRA’s Northern Command. That’s the same Martin McGuinness who was lauded by the great and the good – and later eulogised – as being a “peacemaker” who was “on a journey”. The same Martin McGuinness who was complicit in mass murder but also became the ‘Deputy First Minister’ in the Stormont Assembly. The same Martin McGuinness who was involved in secret talks with representatives of the British government, whilst the IRA was still actively involved in terrorism.
Engaging in criticism of the British government or the security forces, over the use of agents such as Scappaticci, is a form of avoidance and intellectually dishonest. If people think it is morally problematic or wrong to recruit and handle an agent inside the IRA, such as Scappaticci, then surely they should be equally troubled, if not more so, by government representatives secretly talking to his boss, Martin McGuinness, whilst he was directing terrorism. It was McGuinness who authorised atrocities such as the intentional murder of civilians in the Remembrance Day bombing in Enniskillen. Does that not warrant some moral outrage about McGuinness or is he off-limits now?
There is clearly an inconsistency in the thinking of people who claim it is morally wrong to recruit and handle an agent like Scappaticci – to help undermine the IRA and end a campaign of terrorism – but yet they think it is morally justifiable to speak to McGuinness, his boss – in the hope it leads to an end of the IRA’s campaign of terrorism.
Martin McGuinness was a high profile member of Sinn Fein and a central figure in a peace process that was supported by governments, much of the media and a majority of the public. All of this despite the fact everyone knew McGuinness was also a terrorist, complicit in mass murder and numerous other serious criminal offences. If some people want to use a soft focus lens to view the metaphorical sausages of the peace process, that’s fine, but if we are being honest, we all know how those particular sausages were made and the reality wasn’t an appetising spectacle.
The Friends Of Freddie Scappaticci
Captain Renault: “I’m shocked! Shocked to find that gambling is going on in here.”
Croupier: “Your winnings sir.”
Captain Renault: “Oh, thank you very much.”
From the film ‘Casablanca’
Regardless of the nature or level of approval for liaisons between representatives of the British government and the IRA in the early 1990s, during John Major’s tenure as Prime Minister, it is crystal clear that they occurred despite the fact that the IRA was actively engaged in terrorism.
Whilst having talks with a terrorist group involved in terrorism could be viewed as morally problematic, such actions were obviously rationalised as being a necessary evil, for the greater good of society. That rationalisation process is probably encapsulated by the phrase ‘taking risks for peace’.
The early 1990s wasn’t the first time that the British government had held secret talks with IRA terrorists.
In the summer of 1972, a number of leading IRA terrorists were flown to London for secret talks with representatives of the government (I referred to this meeting in a blog you can read HERE). One of the attendees was Martin McGuinness, who at the time was a rising star within the IRA command.
Martin McGuinness is on the left of this photograph, taken at a press conference in 1972. He is accompanied by three leading Provisional IRA members including the terrorist group’s Chief of Staff. His position within the IRA in 1972 was well known to the security forces and British government.
Less than a decade later, in 1981, the British government communicated with a faction of the IRA Sinn Fein leadership – including Martin McGuinness – during the Irish Republican hunger strike at the Maze prison. The government made a secret offer through a go-between known as ‘Mountain Climber’ or ‘Soon’, to give the IRA a face-saving opportunity to end the hunger strike. The offer was rejected by the IRA representatives outside the prison, most likely for propaganda purposes. The hunger strike continued and more prisoners died. Many more people would be killed and maimed in the years of terrorism that were to follow.
In a previous blog (You can read it HERE) I included copies of declassified documents from the early 1980s that revealed the thoughts of ministers and officials within the British government, at that time led by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. It is clear from the comments made in the documents that the government had intelligence information about a faction within the IRA leadership.
One excerpt from a memo written in 1981 by Robert Armstrong, the Cabinet Secretary, revealed that Downing Street was aware, even prior to the hunger strike, that some – but not all – within the IRA were looking for a means to end the campaign of terrorism:
“The Provisionals need to settle the prisons problem on terms that they can represent as acceptable to them if they are to go on – as we know some of them wish to do – to consider an end of the current terrorist campaign. A leadership which has “lost” on the prisons is in no position to do this.”
I would suggest that this represents the thinking within the British government and helps explain subsequent actions including the secret talks that were revealed in the early 1990s. An intelligence led counter-terrorism strategy was pursued by the security forces and intelligence services, to channel the IRA, along with its political wing Sinn Fein, towards political activity and away from violence. The long term objective being a shift in the balance of power within the Republican movement, with those who were more open to persuasion about ending the terrorist campaign, becoming the dominant faction. Bringing this about necessitated patience and the playing of a long game.
The security forces and intelligence services were tasked by the government to undermine the operational effectiveness of terrorist groups in Northern Ireland, using an intelligence led counter-terrorism strategy. One aspect of this was the recruitment of agents who could gather intelligence from deep within the terrorist groups. To maintain their cover and also stay alive, agents would obviously be obliged to participate in criminality.
Simply being a member of a terrorist group is a criminal offence but involvement in the preparation of terrorist attacks, discussions with fellow terrorists about acts of terrorism, providing logistical support to the terrorist group or various other typical activities in the life of a terrorist, will also entail the participation in criminality. These agents would therefore have to be authorised by the security forces to engage in criminality and be designated as ‘participating agents’.
The simple fact is that an agent operating alongside other terrorists, is in the best position to gather intelligence that can be used to prevent attacks, save lives, seize weapons and explosives, make arrests or even gain some insight on tactics, current thinking within an ‘active service unit’ or the terrorist group in general. In order to gain access to the type of intelligence that will most likely prevent attacks and save lives, the agent has to be on the inside and involved. The agent can’t gather intelligence if he has to excuse himself every time criminality is discussed or about to occur. The agent has to maintain the appearance of being a loyal and dedicated member of the group, who obeys orders given by those in his chain of command. Failure to do so can arouse suspicion of being an informer, which in turn can lead to death.
As I have stated in previous blogs, agents inside terrorist groups act as the eyes and ears of their handlers but the handlers are not in a position to control what the agent does inside his terrorist active service unit. Attempting to micro-manage an agent could blow his cover and get him killed. During the Troubles, it could also be days or weeks between meetings or hurried telephone conversations, during which the agent could pass on intelligence to his handlers. Much of this was of course occurring before the era of mobile phones or the internet and landline telephone conversations could not be considered secure.
As I have explained earlier in this blog, all of this covert activity was occurring with the full knowledge of government ministers and officials, but in a legal penumbra. There was also a degree of uncertainty regarding the grey suits in Westminster. Would they cover the backs of the people on the ground in Northern Ireland, who were risking their lives to gather the intelligence? At the first hint of controversy, would they feign shock like Captain Renault in the film ‘Casablanca’, then cover their own arses and throw handlers, agents and others under a media circus bus.
Some people might say it was too close to call.
Retrospective Clarity
In a court case in 2019 (You can read about it HERE) and then again in an appeal hearing in 2021 (You can read about it HERE), the judges ruled in favour of the government and MI5 on both occasions. The judgements provided clarity on the lawfulness of handling agents who are authorised to participate in criminal activity.
During the court case, redacted excerpts of an MI5 document entitled “Guidelines on the Use of Agents who participate in Criminality – Official Guidance” were produced. One section commented on the authorisation of agents and that they did not have immunity from prosecution:
“9. An authorisation of the use of a participating agent has no legal effect and does not confer on either the agent or those involved in the authorisation process any immunity from prosecution. Rather, the authorisation will be the Service’s explanation and justification of its decisions should the criminal activity of the agent come under scrutiny by an external body, e.g. the police or prosecuting authorities….“
This of course is in stark contrast to what armchair critics and conspiracy theorists prefer to believe. The agents were not granted immunity and their handlers had no need to ‘turn a blind eye’ to what the participating agents were doing, as the authorisation process was lawful.
In relation to the potential harm caused by an agent engaging in criminality, the guidelines also covered the issue of proportionality:
“8. The criterion at paragraph 7(c) is not satisfied unless the authorising officer is satisfied that the potential harm to the public interest from the criminal activity of the agent is outweighed by the benefit to the public interest from the information it is anticipated that the agent may provide and that the benefit is proportionate to the criminal activity in question.”
This means that the authorising MI5 officer has to, in effect, do a cost-benefit analysis and decide if the cost – the harm caused by the agent’s criminality – can be justified by the benefits to society of having the agent remain in place – the gathering of intelligence. This will necessitate a judgement call on behalf of those authorising the agent and they may at some stage be expected to explain their rationale. If that situation arises, it will then be up to others including the Public Prosecution Service to determine if the actions of the agent and the authorisation given were justified and proportionate.
As far as I am aware, the parameters for what level of criminality can be authorised, have never been disclosed and there is a good reason for this. If it was stated publicly that an agent could not participate in certain categories of crime, then terrorist groups or organised crime groups would have a way of testing the loyalty of people working for them. These groups would simply order their members to engage in the type of crimes that agents are not allowed to commit.
The other side of that particular coin is that the news media and general public are also largely in the dark about what it is permissible to authorise. This means that ill-informed and sensationalist news coverage, often fuelled by people or groups with a political agenda, creates a false perception regarding supposedly out of control rogue agents, or handlers ‘turning a blind eye’ to criminality, whilst colluding in nefarious conspiracies.
I don’t wish to revisit all the points I made in my previous blogs about the MI5 related court case but I think this comment from the judges at the appeal hearing is important and worth highlighting:
“60. One thing, at least, is uncontroversial. Clearly the use of agents is not of itself in any way unlawful. But further, even where ostensible criminality on the part of an agent is involved – whether in the form of membership of a proscribed organisation or in the form of participating in other criminal activities undertaken by that organisation or both – it does not necessarily follow that the conduct of the agent, or instructing handler, actually is necessarily criminal.”
The judges were stating clearly that the handling and authorising of participating agents to engage in criminality, was not unlawful. Indeed, during the course of the court hearings, the judges accepted that:
“…it was not simply desirable but “necessary” (or “essential”) for the Security Service to have the power to run agents who participate in criminality (and that is also consistent with the de Silva Report).”
I think that deals with the lawfulness of handling participating agents but what about the morality of the State having any kind of working relationship with a terrorist, an agent or otherwise.
Tea & Biscuits With Terrorists
“Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them… well, I have others.”
Groucho Marx
During the Troubles, the government and various parts of its security apparatus were playing a long game, the goal of which was to win an intelligence war and channel the terrorist groups into ceasefires and a peace process. If the leadership of a terrorist group could be brought to a point where they realised their use of violence couldn’t succeed, then they would be forced to seek an alternative, non-violent, political route instead.
The hope was that the direction in which the leadership of each terrorist group travelled, the lower ranks and supporters would follow, probably after internalising the leadership’s narrative regarding their change in direction. A face-saving golden bridge of retreat was therefore constructed, to facilitate groups such as the IRA, as they repackaged their failure to achieve stated objectives, then presented it to their target audience as a strategic victory.
In the early 1990s the people involved in secret liaisons included an intelligence officer from MI6, who was later replaced by an MI5 officer – both representing the British government, a local businessman named Brendan Duddy who had previously acted as a go-between or ‘channel’ known as ‘Mountain Climber’ during the 1981 hunger strike, and Martin McGuinness, who was there on behalf of the IRA leadership.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s. McGuinness was not only a leading member of Sinn Fein – the IRA’s political wing – he was also one of the seven member ruling IRA Army Council and also the Officer Commanding (OC) of the IRA’s ‘Northern Command’. This meant that McGuinness had operational responsibility for all IRA terrorism in Northern Ireland and the counties on the southern side of the Irish border. McGuinness was receiving regular briefings about the planning for terrorist attacks and he was also the individual who gave authorisation for IRA ‘active service units’ (ASUs) to proceed with their plans.
Another one of McGuinness’ responsibilities was the IRA’s ‘Internal Security Unit’ (ISU), which is commonly referred to as ‘the nutting squad’, because their preferred means of killing was to shoot their victims in the head – the ‘nut’. The ISU was attached to Northern Command and therefore the IRA members in the unit worked directly for McGuinness and his deputy – also known as his ‘adjutant’. This means that McGuinness was fully aware of what the ISU was doing and as we now know, one of the people working for him in the ISU was Freddie Scappaticci, otherwise known as the agent ‘Stakeknife’.
When the need arose for the ISU to kill someone who was believed to be an informer, it would have been McGuinness or another member of the IRA Army Council who gave authorisation for the killing to occur. The ISU couldn’t kill anyone without receiving authorisation from an Army Council member. Therefore members of the IRA Army Council, including McGuinness, are known to have been complicit in the abduction and murder of a number of alleged informers. Scappaticci knew about their involvement in this and therefore, so did his military handlers.
Again, that’s the same Martin McGuinness who was lauded as a “peacemaker” and became Deputy First Minister at Stormont. This explains the rather muted response by Sinn Fein, to revelations about Freddie Scappaticci. It’s quite a conundrum for them. If they condemn Scappaticci’s actions whilst he was working in the ISU, they would in effect be condemning members of the IRA leadership who gave him his orders, including his former boss in the IRA’s ‘Northern Command’, Martin McGuinness.
On page 37 of the recently published Op Kenova interim report the author raises the issue of morality:
“Most fundamentally, even if it were possible accurately and reliably to say that a particular agent within a terrorist group did more good than harm, the morality and legality of agents doing any harm – with the knowledge of or on behalf of the state – are very different matters.”
On page 15 of the report, in the explanatory notes, the author also helpfully states that the report contains his opinions and understandings and that nothing contained in the report should be treated as decisive:
“I have no power to adjudicate upon or determine legal rights or obligations or questions of civil or criminal liability and nothing in this report purports to be or should be treated as decisive of any such matters. The findings, conclusions and recommendations set out in this report are based on the information and materials
available to me and they represent my own opinions and understandings.”
The report’s author is of course free to comment on the morality of handling an agent but as he says, it is only an opinion. Other opinions are available.
One issue that arises when commenting on morality, is that you need an objective moral standard (such as the bible) to compare something against, otherwise you have to make do with subjective morality. The problem with subjective morality is that it is merely an opinion and one person’s opinion, their subjective morality, is no more valid than another person’s subjective morality. It is difficult to argue who is wrong or right, or what is good or evil, because all you have is subjective morality. And that brings us back to the Op Kenova report.
Is handling an agent such as Freddie Scappaticci morally questionable? If it is, then what objective moral standard is being used and has that standard been used consistently down through the years?
Let’s take a look.
In October 1990, Martin McGuinness authorised what became known as a ‘human bomb’ attack on a military border check-point in Coshquin. The first seven minutes of the following documentary covers the horror of the bomb attack that Martin McGuinness authorised whilst in his role as OC of Northern Command. It also mentions that soon after the atrocity at Coshquin, McGuinness was holding secret talks with an intelligence officer, acting as an intermediary for the British government.
Again, that’s the same Martin McGuinness who was Freddie Scappaticci’s OC in Northern Command. Did the people who expressed their outrage and questioned the morality of handling agents like Scappaticci, express the same outrage about his boss Martin McGuinness having a working relationship with the British State?
Was it immoral to handle an agent like Scappaticci but morally justifiable to have tea and biscuits with his boss, not long after an atrocity like the proxy bomb attack at Coshquin?
Do you see how passing judgement on the morality of things that occurred in the past, becomes a little more complicated once you add some context. Once you ask a question about morality then surely everyone and everything has to be judged in a similar fashion, preferably using an agreed objective standard. It’s tricky however if you only have subjective opinions to offer and even trickier when people begin to look around and ask awkward questions about the morality of other things that happened in the past.
Let’s look at some more context.
In a previous blog (You can read it HERE) I detailed how Martin McGuinness and others within the IRA Sinn Fein leadership were on the British government’s radar, prior to the 1981 hunger strike at the Maze prison. The government assessment, contained within declassified documents, was that a faction including McGuinness had concluded they needed to find a way of ending the IRA’s campaign of terrorism and move in a political direction. It’s therefore unsurprising that a decade later, the government was talking to McGuinness about a way to end the violence.
As the years passed, this relationship between the government, the IRA and its political wing gradually became more public. In December 1997 a Sinn Fein delegation visited Downing Street and met with Prime Minister Tony Blair. The following photograph is of the members of the Sinn Fein delegation that had tea and biscuits with Tony Blair, as well as other government ministers and officials.
Third from the left in the photograph is Martin McGuinness who was complicit in mass murder and a wide range of other serious criminal offences, whilst a senior member of the IRA and Sinn Fein. This would of course include his complicity in the ‘human bomb’ attack at Coshquin and the bomb atrocity at Enniskillen in 1987. McGuinness was also Chief of Staff of the IRA when a bomb exploded on Lord Mountbatten’s boat in August 1979. This attack went ahead despite the fact that it was known that children would be on the vessel.
How’s that morality thing working for you now?
Don’t forget the recent displays of moral outrage over Scappaticci being an agent and don’t forget that his former boss had tea and biscuits with Tony Blair in Downing Street. Don’t forget that according to the narratives offered by some in the news media, McGuinness was a peacemaker on a journey whereas Scappaticci was a monster.
Do you Remember what I said about subjective morality being merely opinions? Do you see how those subjective morals can be conveniently flexible, depending upon the narrative that people wish to promote?
Let’s continue.
Third from the right in the above photograph is convicted IRA terrorist Martin Ferris who, amongst other things, was involved in the smuggling of weapons and explosives from Boston to Ireland on a fishing boat called the Marita Ann. The boat was intercepted by the Irish navy in September 1984. Again, he had tea and biscuits with Tony Blair.
Let’s continue.
The woman on the far left of the above picture is Siobhan O’Hanlon, who was known to have been actively involved in terrorism on behalf of the IRA. This included the making of bombs. Again, she had tea and biscuits with Tony Blair. Do you recall there being much in the way of moral outrage expressed by the news media?
Let’s continue.
In February 1988, Siobhan O’Hanlon travelled to Gibraltar to carry out reconnaissance, in preparation for a no warning car bomb, that was intended to explode during a changing of the guard ceremony. O’Hanlon was under surveillance by MI5 whilst she carried out the reconnaissance. O’Hanlon is the subject of the following MI5 surveillance photograph, taken in Gibraltar.
Do you think that the government ministers and officials who had tea and biscuits with Siobhan O’Hanlon and the rest of the delegation in Downing Street, were blissfully unaware of who they were talking to? Do you think it’s likely that an intelligence briefing was provided before the meeting?
Remember that we are supposed to be outraged by the recruitment and handling of agents like Scappaticci, but the Prime Minister having tea and biscuits with some interesting characters in Downing Street, is reported as an historic moment and attracts favourable media coverage. No-one of course wants to dwell for long on how the peace process sausages were actually made.
Some more context.
During the mid to late 1990s, whilst the IRA was supposedly on ceasefire, they continued to commit murder. It was widely known that the murders were committed by the IRA, whilst using a cover name. This was during the peace process when British and Irish government ministers and officials were having tea and biscuits with people such as Martin McGuinness and others.
One would think that multiple murders on both sides of the border would quickly lead to a declaration that the IRA had breached its ceasefire, but the two governments engaged in an impressive display of mental gymnastics and moral flexibility, to try and avoid condemning the IRA leadership. It was preferable to think of murder as ‘internal housekeeping’. I wrote a blog about these murders and the mental gymnastics within government. You can read it HERE.
If handling an agent like Freddie Scappaticci is considered morally questionable, then how about ignoring the bleeding obvious whilst a terrorist group commits multiple murders? Perhaps someone should write a two hundred page report about it.
You may also be interested in a related blog that you can read HERE. This blog is about the murder of Kevin McGuigan and Gerard Davison during an internal IRA feud in 2015. Both of them were involved in the murders previously committed by the IRA in the 1990s, during the peace process.
I will direct your attention to the mystery over a Glock handgun that was found during a police raid and arrest of an Irish Republican and friend of of Gerard Davison. A narrative emerged that the Glock was supposedly stolen from a police car in 2004, whilst officers investigated a bank robbery.
It later transpired that the Glock wasn’t stolen from the police, so that raises some questions about the origin of the handgun. One suggestion is that the Glock was one of a number of weapons smuggled from Florida, by the IRA, in the late 1990s. This of course could be considered another breach of the IRA ceasefire but if you have been paying attention you will have detected a pattern in the moral and linguistic flexibility of government ministers.
The preferred narrative at the time was that the IRA leadership, the Army Council, didn’t sanction the arms smuggling from Florida. The people involved in the smuggling, included one person who admitted to the US authorities that he was an IRA member. He was obviously following orders from someone higher up the IRA chain of command. It wasn’t a rogue operation. I have yet to hear a plausible explanation regarding how they acquired the money to buy the weapons, or what they were going to do with all the weapons they posted to Ireland.
The truth of course is that the IRA leadership did sanction the smuggling but the truth was politically problematic. The governments wanted to keep the IRA’s political wing, Sinn Fein, involved in the peace process.
The truth and morality was shown yet again to be flexible.
I could continue with examples of flexible morality, such as the secret deal by the Blair government that led to the issuing of so-called ‘comfort letters’ or ‘on the run letters’ to over two hundred people, many of them reportedly linked to terrorist murders committed by the IRA. You can read a newspaper article about the letters HERE.
I could also comment on the early release of terrorist prisoners under the terms of the Belfast / Good Friday Agreement and the effect that had on subsequent prosecutions of terrorists, who were given significantly reduced prison sentences.
All of this and more could be considered to be morally problematic. It is for everyone to decide for themselves on the morality of what has been done in an effort to secure some kind of peace in Northern Ireland, but we shouldn’t be highly selective about what is placed in the media or investigative spotlight and judged in isolation, without the benefit of all the facts, without proper context.
After Stakeknife
A seven year investigation into the alleged activities of the agent known as ‘Stakeknife’, has so far cost forty million pounds but resulted in no prosecutions of terrorists or security forces personnel. A number of files were submitted to the Public Prosecution Service (PPS) by the Op Kenova investigators, but after examination of each of the files, the PPS recommended no criminal prosecutions, as there was insufficient evidence to provide a reasonable prospect of conviction for any of the people reported.
Although not officially identified by the Op Kenova interim report that was published last week, Stakeknife is known to be Freddie Scappaticci. He certainly won’t be facing prosecution as he died in April 2023. Scappaticci had been a member of the IRA’s Internal Security Unit throughout the 1980s and as I said previously, the ISU was under the control of Martin McGuinness.
The following photograph, taken at an IRA funeral, is perhaps symbolic of the close working relationship that McGuinness and Scappaticci enjoyed for all those years.
Can our society cope with the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about the past? Any process aimed at truth and reconciliation will require honesty and consistency but also contextual information. It won’t come from highly selective and expensive investigations, containing subjective opinions on a tiny fraction of people and events.
This may require a proper education in how sausages were made. Be careful of what you wish for because you might just get it.
Thanks for taking the time to read my blog. You can also find me on Twitter (X) at @SageDespatches
If you feel the urge to reach for a keyboard and complain about the blog or accuse me of being “anti the peace process”, please don’t waste your time. I’m not anti peace and indeed I knew many people who were killed, injured or threatened whilst trying their best to bring about that peace. Try instead to reflect upon the morality of your own position, your own past, your own opinions on terrorism. You might find that more productive.
Sage Despatches 
Excellent piece of analysis. The missing element in Kenova is a set of formal metrics rather than opinion. Then proportionality can be properly assessed.
LikeLike
Thanks Ken. The tricky thing with opinions, particularly when they are about morality, is that other opinions are always available. The Op Kenova report is merely one perspective and it doesn’t look like it will ever be tested in a criminal court. After several years and £40 million, people will still make up their own mind. That’s not a lot to show for the money.
LikeLike