Sir: I am sorry that I accidentally demilitarised Brigadier Calvert,
but I stand by my opinions and specifically reject ' direct rule' as politically impracticable.
So long as Northern Ireland remains a semi-detached part of the UK, the IRA insurrection is directed against the Stormont authorities rather than against Britain as such. As soon as the province is fully integrated into the UK this ceases to be the case.
Direct rule would be appropriate if the fight were about the civil rights of 500,000 Catholics and the fears of one million Protestants that they might eventually be outnumbered if the Catholics got their civil rights and equal treatment as regards jobs and housing, and therefore no longer emigrated on the same scale as they have done hitherto.
However, the real issue is the political will of the Catholics to be Irish and of the Protestants to remain British, both without having to move. Direct rule would therefore identify Britain more closely with the Protestant side, inevitably leading to an extension of the civil war.
Once the war spreads to the British mainland it cannot be contained except by restoring National Service and imposing a state of emergency throughout the UK. With the Government majority at its present level, these measures could only be imposed by a coalition and I very much doubt whether Labour would play, especially after the humiliation in the Common Market debate.
The result in England would be widespread rioting against the measures themselves in addition to the actual confrontation between the IRA and the public powers. In this country an even graver situation would arise.
Our own Nationalist movement, which is somewhat larger than the SNP alone, but generally accepts the party's leadership, could not stand aside and watch thousands of Scots, albeit of Irish descent, killing each other for the sake of an extraneous cause. Nor could it back up the UK authorities for the purpose of restoring order. Its only course would be to try and restore order on its own, which it could only do by taking over the country. This could only be done if the people, including a reasonably large section of the business, professional and local government elite, were prepared to go along with it. • My impression is that they would, in the sort of emergency outlined above, though not in present circumstances, simply because our leaders could maintain better order here in such a situation than anybody at Westminster. But this improved order would emerge from some months of chaos, with Scots IRA and Orangemen fighting each other, the British army and the Scottish provisional government also fighting each other as well as trying to restrain both Scots-Irish factions and two sets of civil authorities, functioning as best they could.
The British government and the British army are doing all that can be done at the moment. My loyalty is not to them but to Scotland; your case is different and I think you are doing them no service by advocating policies that can only lead to a massive escalation of the present conflict.
Anthony J. C. Kerr 52 Castlegate, Jedburgh, Scotland
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