FINAL IRISH SOLUTION
The British Army is not an appropriate instrument, nor are military and dictatorial operations appropriate methods, to clean up the Irish mess. This ought to be as generally obvious as is its corollary: that, sooner or later, a political way of cleaning up the mess will have to be found. It ought also to be obvious, although in certain invincibly ignorant quarters it is seemingly not, that to withdraw the British troops in the present circumstances would be a coward's act of treacherous and wanton irresponsibility. This said, it cannot but be bad for Ireland, north and south, and for Great Britain and the British army, that British troops remain in Northern Ireland hi their present posture indefinitely and without any real prospect of their withdrawal. Furthermore, internment and its associated practices are repugnant, even if temporarily necessary; and, if sustained indefinitely, will cause deep, open and rotten wounds. There is little evidence to justify internment on grounds of temporary necessity: it looks increasingly like a policy of desperation which has failed. The specatacle of the Secretary of State for Home Affairs being shuffled around Belfast in a helicopter under conditions of maximum security is evidence of failure.
It may suit the rhetoric traditionally, favoured by British governments to talk of not giving in to thugs, of winning' wars,' of not being blackmailed, of a determination to secure military pacification before any political settlement can be considered. Such talk, when its subject is Ireland, is foolish stuff, airy nonsense which, however well it suits the rhetorical tradition, fits neither present facts nor past experience. The rhetoric, and the policies which it expresses, are not and have not ever been helpful in dealing with Ireland. At this moment in Northern Ireland we are witnessing a collapse of public order brought about by violent revolutionaries who find shelter, refuge and support within the minority. These revolutionaries would not find shelter, refuge and support were it not that very many people in the catholic minority regard themselves as politically oppressed by the Stormont regime and have now come to regard the British army as the agent of that regime. When British troops were first deployed in the streets and lanes of Northern Ireland in support of the civil authority, they were welcomed by the catholics as their defenders. Due mainly ,o the subsequent violence of the IRA and to the British army's. inevitable response to that violence, British troops are now increasingly seen as the natural enemies of those they came to defend. Violence breeds violence and hostility, and hostility succours further violence.
From the recognition of this situation the conclusion follows that a political solution must be found. Minor reforms, proportional representation, devices to permit the minority a greater participation in government, and such like are tinkerings with the problem and will not work. There is no disposition in England to hang on to any part of Ireland, and what would best suit the British government (which must bear prime responsibility for finding a solution to What is, in the last resort, its problem) and British opinion would be for a change of mind to take place whereby the majority in Northern Ireland became prepared seriously to consider the conditions under which the unification of Ireland could be made acceptable. The unification of Ireland is a consummation to be wished no less by the English than by the Irish, and Mr Wilson deserves gratitude for bringing the matter into political discussion.
It is, and always has been, difficult to think of any final Irish solution, of any final cleaning up of the Irish mess, which does not involve unification. The position has now arrived when more good than ill will be done by a British government summoning up courage to say so. The object of British policy towards Ireland could then be defined closely enough: to create the conditions in and under which the Northern Ireland majority will accept a united Ireland. It needs to be said, at the same time, and also to be clearly realised, that any unification without the consent of the northern majority would risk spreading over all Ireland the mess which is now chiefly confined in the north.
One institution stands in the way. We have previously argued that, on the ground of its manifest failure to govern properly, Stormont should go. The confused sharing of responsibility for law and order between London and Belfast reinforces this conclusion. The Stormont regime, for most of its existence, has been an instrument of repression of the minority by the majority. Although it has lately introduced many reforms, it has usually done so in response to pressure from London or of events within the province. We believe that no compelling case can be made out for further preserving the privileged and exceptional position of Stormont within the United Kingdom system of government; and assert that Northern Ireland should become a region of the United Kingdom ruled, like the other regions, directly. Stormont is the greatest impediment to a settlement.
With Stormont removed a joint and two-fold Declaration of Intent could be made by the Prime Minister in London and the Taioseach in Dublin, to the effect: first that the establishment of a united and independent Ireland was the objective of both governments; and, second, that until a majority of the electorate in Northern Ireland declared itself in favour of such an Ireland, each government would respect the sovereignty and integrity of the other, and would in consequence take all necessary steps in its own country to support the maintenance of law and order in the other. It would be in the interests of both countries to act forcibly against the IRA (which in the long-run poses a far greater threat to an Irish government than it does to a British government). The British government, in seeking to reassure the majority in Northern Ireland and to redress the grievances of the minority, would naturally search for arrangements which, in a future united and independent Ireland, would protect the new minority. A Constitutional Commission representing both governments and the various interests of Ireland could work towards the formulation of a new secular constitution for a united Ireland which would, eventually, be put before the electorates of both north and south to come into effect only if a majority in both north and south accepted it. If thus accepted, the Parliament of a united and independent Ireland could then be elected.
At that moment — which need not be an unimagineable time ahead — the Dail would follow Stormont into history, and thereafter the British army would leave Ireland and the conditions of a final and bloodless solution have been achieved.
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