A report in the Belfast Telegraph last Monday, July 28, throws further light on one of the more intriguing aspects of the often obscure connections between Sinn Féin and the British state leading up to and following the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.
In his book on the ‘peace process’, Jonathan Powell – who was Tony Blair’s Chief of Staff as Prime Minister between 1997 and 2007- describes how he wrote part of a key speech, delivered by Gerry Adams, in which the Sinn Féin leader for the first time gave a public indication that the IRA would “go away.”
In March and April 2005, Powell also contributed to two key speeches by Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams which set the scene for the declaration, in July 2005, by the Irish Republican Army in which it said that it was shutting up shop.
Powell’s background had been in the Foreign Office, which has always been ‘close’ to the British overseas intelligence agency MI6. Last November, Powell was appointed by Prime Minister Keir Starmer as National Security Advisor, which is the direct channel between the security services and the Government.
The British intelligence services through MI6 and MI5 and their network of informers and agents of influence in Ireland, including at the top levels of the republican movement and indeed in the Irish state, were a key factor in the more than two decade long process which led to the IRA giving up.
The background to the Adams speech in Monaghan on October 26 2002 was the arrest, on October 4, 2002, of Denis Donaldson who, apart from being a British agent, was the Sinn Féin administrator in Stormont. The charges against Donaldson and two others were dropped in December 2005 and he was exposed as an informer on December 16.
Blair had visited Belfast on October 18 and delivered a speech in which he made it clear that the Good Friday Agreement would never be made to work unless the IRA left the stage for good. Of course, he pitched that to nationalists as something that would assist them in allowing Sinn Féin in from the cold to “share power.”
Blair claimed that “the continuing existence of the IRA as an active paramilitary organisation is now the best card those whom republicans call “rejectionist” unionists, have in their hand.” That was exactly the manner in which the IRA leadership attempted to persuade IRA members that it would be best if they all went away. Just as they had claimed that disarming had been another use of the arms.
They were Orwellian times. No republican would have demurred if all of the concessions were part of achieving the IRA’s sole objective of a 32 County Republic. They were not. The IRA disarmed and disbanded without that being one inch closer than it had been before the ceasefire.
Powell in his book describes how “absolutely amazed” he was that Adams in his speech had used “pretty much unchanged” key passages that Powell himself had written including the crucial sentence: “So if you ask me do I envisage a future without the IRA? The answer is obvious. The answer is yes.”
Adams used exactly that phrase in his speech, a copy of which I have as issued by the Sinn Féin press office at the time. Which is pretty astounding, never mind “amazing.” I do not imagine that Griffith or Collins ever delivered speeches in support of the Treaty in which the decisive message was penned by Tom Jones, Lloyd George’s deputy secretary.
Another important and unique concession had also been signalled by Adams in his speech when he declared that if Sinn Féin was allowed to participate in running Northern Ireland “I can conceive of a world in which it would be appropriate for Sinn Féin to join the Policing Board and participate fully in the policing arrangements on a democratic basis.” That too was written by the British.
The declassified Downing Street files which are the basis of the Belfast Telegraph piece by Sam McBride throws an even starker light on what happened. Sinn Féin had questioned Powell’s recollection of the background to the speech as published in his 2008 book and denied that Powell had anything to do with writing the speech delivered by Adams.
In the files there is a memo from Powell to Blair dated October 24, 2002 in which Powell informs the Prime Minister: “Gerry Adams called me this afternoon and bizarrely asked me to suggest written ideas for his speech on Saturday responding to your speech.”
Adams had apparently suggested to Powell that the situation within the IRA was “slipping away from him.” That had been a common ploy used when there was genuine and probably majority opposition within the IRA – not so much to the ceasefire but to the political surrender on Stormont and ‘consent’ – but Adams and his supporters were well in control by 2002.
What Adams’ reference to the danger of the IRA taking umbrage at how things were going clearly implies too that Sinn Féin and the British government – Dublin was consulted about none of this according to Powell – both wished for the same conclusion: That Sinn Féin be allowed to administer part of Ireland under British rule through “the institutions,” another phase used in their speeches by both Blair and Adams.
For those of us familiar with what happened and with the documents and language used it is interesting that Adams again deployed the rhetorical device of mentioning what were parts of Blair’s speech which would annoy republicans, and then commenting that: “having looked at it carefully I do see some positive elements.”
In the same way he and other republican leaders had responded to every key message sent by the British since the late 1980s, and perhaps earlier, even though it was quite apparent that the Brits never once deviated from their bottom line that any settlement would be an internal one.
Power would be devolved to Stormont and the only way Sinn Féin might become a part of administering Northern Ireland – something completely opposed to the aims of the movement since 1921- was for the IRA to go away.
Matt Treacy’s book Endgame: The Good Friday Agreement and the Defeat of the Irish Republican Army will be published on September 1 and is available for preorder on Kindle.