Sir: The IRA bombings in Great Britain may remind the
British people that the troubles in Ulster are not, as popularly depicted, merely an affair between 'the two sides' there with a neutral army caught in the cross-fire. Sovereignty over Ulster is claimed by both London and Dublin. The Dublin claim serves as justification for IRA war in Ulster and Great Britain to prise Ulster out of the United Kingdom through a surrender of Westminster's sovereignty_ Westminster's response in face of IRA violence in Ulster and pressure by the SDLP and Dublin has been formally to pronounce Irish Republican aspirations respectable and understandable.
Westminster has also declared in favour of the political unification of Ireland and, inferentially; against the continued existence of the United Kingdom if only Ulster would agree. This new Westminster confession of faith in the dismemberment of the kingdom over which it presides has undoubtedly led the IRA to hope that bombings in Great Britain would persuade so craven a sovereign power to withdraw from Ulster.
The British people have no need to invent scapegoats for the bombings in Great Britain. The culprits are the Wilson and Heath governments and the supporting cast of politicians in the main parties. The ignorami in the Home and Foreign Offices should not be forgotten. If the British people allow their incompetent politicians to assert a half-hearted sovereignty over the whole United Kingdom in pursuance of palsied policies in Ulster, then other Binning. hams will surely follow.
Ernest A. Baird Nine Rosepark East, Belfast
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