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Re: UK Election

Posted: Tue Dec 17, 2019 8:08 pm
by Jimgward
Much of the criticism directed at Corbyn focuses on his relationship with Sinn Féin in the 1980s and 90s. During the 2017 general election campaign, Boris Johnson tweeted a photo of Corbyn with Martin McGuinness in 1995, deriding his claim to have never met the IRA: “You cannot trust this man!” By the time that photo was taken, the Sinn Féin leader, Gerry Adams, had already shaken hands with the then US president, Bill Clinton; two years later, McGuinness would be a guest in Downing Street. It has been widely reported that Adams and McGuinness were still members of the IRA’s army council at the time. But Clinton, Tony Blair and the Unionist leader David Trimble all held talks with them in their capacity as Sinn Féin politicians – a distinction vital for the entire peace process.

While successive prime ministers insisted publicly that they would never “talk with terrorists”, there was in fact discreet contact between British government officials and the IRA throughout the conflict. William Whitelaw, the secretary of state for Northern Ireland at the time, even negotiated directly with the IRA leadership during the truce of 1972. Pragmatic considerations trumped any sense of moral outrage.

Corbyn’s critics insist that his record of engagement with Irish republicans is very different, because he supported their political goals. It’s quite true that leading voices of the British Labour left argued for Irish unity in the 1980s, much to the displeasure of unionists in Britain and Northern Ireland alike. Corbyn himself wasn’t a prominent figure at the time, and became an MP only in 1983; Ken Livingstone, then head of the Greater London Council, was much better known, and his comments on the Northern Irish conflict attracted a great deal of controversy. If support for a united Ireland made Corbyn and Livingstone into fellow travellers of the IRA, by the same logic, those who defended the union with Britain shared a political objective with the loyalist paramilitaries responsible for hundreds of deaths during the Troubles. The argument of guilt by association can easily backfire on those who deploy it.

Re: UK Election

Posted: Tue Dec 17, 2019 8:23 pm
by Jimgward
1972, July 7: Leaders of the Irish Republican Army flown from Ireland to Britain in a military transport aircraft. A secret meeting takes place in London between representatives of the Irish Republican Army and William Whitelaw MP, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, acting on behalf of the UK prime minster, Edward Heath MP. The event is nicknamed the “Whitelaw Talks” or the “Cheyne Walk Talks” after the home of Paul Channon MP, the junior Minister of State at the Northern Ireland Office. IRA negotiators include Seán Mac Stíofáin, Dáithí Ó Conaill, Martin McGuinness, Gerry Adams, Séamus Twomey and Ivor Bell.

1977, February: Douglas Hurd MP, the Conservative Party’s future Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and Home Secretary under prime minister Margaret Thatcher MP, meets Sinn Féin’s Gerry Adams and Danny Morrison in Belfast. He is accompanied by a BBC reporter who arranged the meeting. The discussions are approved beforehand by the Opposition leader in the UK, Margaret Thatcher MP, and the Conservative Party’s Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Airey Neave MP. The governing Labour Party’s Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Roy Mason MP, also gives his approval.

1978, March: Using secret intermediaries, the Irish Republican Army offers a ceasefire and peace talks to Merlyn Rees MP, Britain’s Home Secretary, and Jim Callaghan MP, the UK’s Labour Party prime minister. The Republican Movement urges an end to the conflict on the basis of an “honourable settlement“. Offer is rejected. Backchannel communications are frozen.

1986-87: Gerry Adams MP, president of Sinn Féin, and Tom King MP, the governing Conservative Party’s Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, enter into secret correspondence, carried by intermediaries. With the approval of Prime Minister Thatcher, King lays out the UK’s position for negotiations.

1989: With the approval of prime minister Margaret Thatcher MP, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Peter Brooke MP, and senior civil servants in the Northern Ireland Office begin work on a new negotiations’ policy with Sinn Féin and the Irish Republican Army, to be implemented the following year.


and more..... not even taking into account very many meetings between British Politicians and the UDA and UVF - both terrorist organisaitons - but never included in discussions by the media - as that's an agenda that's anti-Unionist....

Re: UK Election

Posted: Thu Dec 19, 2019 2:49 pm
by Jim B
These hypocritical Tory doners who supported the drive for Brexit are making sure they don't lose their EU citizenship but of course they have the money to do it.

You couldn't make it up. :evil:

Jim


https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-brita ... e=facebook

Re: UK Election

Posted: Fri Dec 20, 2019 8:08 am
by Jimgym
So very happy Labour lost. I toasted the result with champagne on the cruise. Bye bye Corbyn, and good riddance.

Re: UK Election

Posted: Fri Dec 20, 2019 11:47 am
by Beechwood
BREAKING NEWS - Tories begin the arduous task of sorting out 9 years of the Tories.