Policing, and the day Sinn Fein thought would never come

8th March 2007
By Martyn Frampton

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Tiocfaidh Ár Lá. Our day will come. Such is the long-standing motto of the ‘Provisional’ Irish republican movement and its foremost expression, Sinn Fein. Yet, for that party, the day that is now coming to pass is one that many of its members thought they would never witness.

On Sunday 28 January, Sinn Fein held its long-anticipated ‘special’ ard fheis (party conference), on whether or not republicans should give their full support to the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI). The weeks prior to that meeting saw Gerry Adams and his colleagues in the Sinn Fein leadership put the case for endorsement of the PSNI to their supporters.

Whilst encountering strident criticism from groups of ‘Concerned Republicans’ opposed to the policing move, the Sinn Fein leadership was confident throughout that it would be victorious in the debate. Meanwhile, seasoned observers of the Irish peace process noted that recent history indicates that Adams only takes so bold a move as to hold such a gathering, when he can be sure of its outcome. Thus, whilst the outcome of the ard fheis remained unknown at the time of writing, there seems little doubt that this phase of the political process will see mainstream Irish republicans abandon their long-standing opposition to the institutions of law and order in Northern Ireland.

Such a move has been hailed in advance by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Peter Hain, as both ‘historic’ and ‘seismic’. The peace process is no stranger to grandiose rhetoric from those who participate in it, but on this occasion Hain’s speechifying is not entirely misplaced. There can be little doubt that republican endorsement of policing in Northern Ireland is a significant moment in the province’s troubled history, for as the former Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland, Seamus Mallon, once noted ‘policing is key in this whole equation’.

The ‘traditional’ republican position (as espoused by groups like the Concerned Republicans), has long held that support for any police force in Northern Ireland would be unacceptable. Viewed from this perspective, endorsement of the police is understood to represent the ultimate recognition of the British state’s right to exert a monopoly of force within the province; to finally accept the right of Northern Ireland to exist.

For this reason, the evolution of Sinn Fein’s policy on the issue has been a slow and halting affair, drawn out over the last decade. Furthermore, for much of that decade, it would seem, the republican leadership appeared to believe that Sinn Fein could defer, perhaps indefinitely, an answer to the question of whether it would support the police.

When the Good Friday Agreement was signed in 1998 and the whole issue of police reform was passed to the Patten Commission, Sinn Fein’s position was clear: the existing police force, the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) had to be disbanded. When the Patten report subsequently fell short of recommending this (calling instead for the reform of the RUC and its transformation into the Police Service of Northern Ireland), Sinn Fein was candid in its criticism of the Patten provisions.

Thereafter, the party became more supportive of ‘Patten’, yet significantly, this only occurred after the Police (Northern Ireland) Bill of May 2000 had been made public; a bill that fell short of fully implementing Patten and, on this basis, was censured by both Sinn Fein and the SDLP.

Thus, through its adoption of Patten at this point, Sinn Fein was able to keep distance between itself and any endorsement of the new police service. In addition, the party could tap in to a putative ‘nationalist consensus’ on the policing issue.

In the event, this ‘consensus’ did not last much more than a year, with the SDLP agreeing to endorse the new police service following the Weston Park negotiations of July 2001. Nevertheless, it served to identify Sinn Fein permanently with the cause of Patten. As a result, the party was able to make significant political gain from the notion that it alone stood for the undiluted implementation of Patten. The SDLP was said by Sinn Fein to have ‘jumped too soon’ and ‘accepted half a loaf’ on policing. In the competition for nationalist votes in Northern Ireland, Sinn Fein carefully used the policing issue to validate its negotiating credentials as the true guardian of the Patten project.

At the same time, the aim of the republican leadership seemed to be to keep the bar of policing reform set high enough to ward off pressure for actual republican endorsement of the PSNI. In line with this, Sinn Fein identified different obstacles at different times, which were said to stand between republicans and acceptance of the PSNI: from the issue of the powers of the Policing Board, to the ability of ex-prisoners to sit on local District Policing Partnership Boards; from the existence of the Special Branch ‘force within a force’, to the devolution of policing and justice powers to the Northern Irish Executive. Each issue was said to be indicative of the fact that the PSNI acronym might better be understood as ‘Patten Still Not Implemented’.

Crucially, this is not to say that such issues were not of genuine concern to republicans, but it is to note their strategic value to the Sinn Fein leadership (a leadership that frequently urges republicans to think and act ‘strategically’). Not only did they allow Sinn Fein to stake out a tougher negotiating line vis-à-vis the SDLP, but they also effectively allowed republicans to kick the policing issue into the long grass.

Eclipsed by the excessive focus on decommissioning in the peace process, Sinn Fein’s refusal to support the police was scarcely viewed as an impediment to the party’s participation in government. Consequently, failed bouts of negotiation in 2003 and 2004 (between Sinn Fein and first David Trimble’s UUP and then Ian Paisley’s DUP) both envisaged republican endorsement of the PSNI, but only after Northern Ireland’s institutions had been restored.

Dean Godson has persuasively demonstrated (in his epic biography of David Trimble) that republicans initially sought to get into government without decommissioning; their belief being that, once there, the institutions would not be collapsed even if no actual decommissioning followed. It seems only too plausible that the Sinn Fein leadership took a similar approach to the policing issue. By placing it on the back burner, Gerry Adams and his colleagues sought to avoid the difficult questions it created for republicans, even as their party took its place in government. Until late 2004, their success in this regard cannot be doubted.

What changed everything, though, was the crisis in the peace process generated by the twin-shocks of the Northern Bank robbery and the murder of the Belfast man, Robert McCartney, in late 2004-early 2005. The effect of these incidents was to give new and unprecedented weight to the charge that republicanism was mired in gangsterism and criminality. As a result, major damage was done to Sinn Fein’s political project and the party’s dynamic growth on both sides of the Irish border appeared to stall.

It was this damage that prompted the IRA to ‘officially’ end its armed campaign and finally resolve the long-running decommissioning saga in 2005. The intended aim of those initiatives was to inject new life and momentum into the peace process. In the event, however, they proved to be insufficient.

Suspicion of republican actions and impatience with the apparently-unending peace process meant there could be no return to what Tony Blair once labelled ‘inch-by-inch’ negotiations. Almost four years after Blair had uttered those words, the demand was instead for the final resolution of all-outstanding issues, including that of republican support for policing in Northern Ireland — particularly in light of the new focus on republican ‘criminality’ that the Northern Bank/McCartney episodes brought.

The truth of this was made plain by the St. Andrews Agreement of October 2006, which now called on Sinn Fein to fully endorse the PSNI as a pre-requisite to the return of devolved government to Northern Ireland. It was made clear that republican failure to deliver on this issue would lead to Sinn Fein being labelled the party ‘in default’ in the peace process. And losing the ‘blame game’ in such obvious fashion would likely cause further political damage to Sinn Fein.

It is for this reason that republicans find themselves in the position they are in today, ready to take the final step of accepting the PSNI. The day they thought would never come, and certainly sought to postpone, seems finally to be at hand.

Martin Frampton is an expert on the strategic evolution of Sinn Fein over the last twenty-five years.

Filed Under: Sinn Fein, Adams, Ira, Ireland, Psni
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