Sinn Féin condemns dissident violence, but does it truly back the police? |
All three main unionist parties have challenged Sinn Féin on its support for policing, following last Saturday’s New IRA car bomb outside Dunmurry police station in south Belfast.
Sinn Féin has strongly condemned the attack in statements from multiple representatives. First Minister Michelle O’Neill reiterated this in a joint press conference at Stormont with her DUP counterpart Emma Little-Pengelly, alongside PSNI chief constable Jon Boutcher and policing board chair Brendan Mullan. The republican party has done everything required by what it once dismissed as “the politics of condemnation”.
Unionists remain unsatisfied on two grounds. First, they say Sinn Féin is sending dangerously mixed messages by condemning violence in the present while justifying it in the past.
The DUP and UUP called on Sinn Féin to declare that bombing police stations has always been wrong. The TUV made a more pointed reference to the “irony” of Órlaithí Flynn, a Sinn Féin assembly member for Dunmurry, condemning the bomb. Her father planted an IRA bomb on a train in Dunmurry in 1980, killing two passengers. Sinn Féin gave no response when asked if Flynn condemned her father’s actions.
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Rather than seeing this as a double standard, it could be considered a testament to progress. Or it could be considered unremarkable: condemning violence in the past but not the present is a repeating pattern of Irish history, and of most history.
Raging at its inconsistency is futile and often trite, as Sinn Féin demonstrates by complaining about the Republic’s different attitudes towards its founders and the Provisional IRA.
Part of the aim of dissident violence is to embarrass Sinn Féin by forcing it to condemn what it once supported. It may be no coincidence that last weekend’s bombing occurred while the party was holding its annual conference in Belfast. Unionists should be careful not to assist this dissident agenda. Realistically, everyone’s best position is to agree to disagree on the past, while being thankful they agree today.
Unionism’s second complaint is that Sinn Féin is not giving the PSNI sufficient support in the present. UUP leader Jon Burrows, a former senior police officer, has been the most specific on this point, saying Sinn Féin is too quick to side with complaints against the police that turn out to be groundless. He has noted that Police Ombudsman investigations typically take several years, by which time the damage has been done to the image of policing within nationalist communities.
Burrows has said the PSNI is not perfect and must still be held to account.
[ ‘Terrorism is always wrong’: NI leaders condemn bomb attack outside Dunmurry PSNI stationOpens in new window ]
If suspicion of the police is instinctive among Irish republicans, it is also instinctive among the political left. Unionists might be better countering it from the right with a mainstream conservative stance on law and order. Crime is low in Northern Ireland, but it could be lower – an aspiration shared by all communities. Sinn Féin is sensitive to perceptions from its constituents of being soft on crime. Antisocial behaviour is one issue where it has become noticeably less liberal in response to public pressure. Unionists could perform a service for everyone by helping to shift the politics of policing in Northern Ireland towards a conventional left-right debate. The policing board provides an ideal forum to do so. It has the legal power to set the PSNI’s objectives, priorities and strategic direction. Stormont parties are represented on it according to their assembly strength.
Straddling unionism’s two complaints is the issue of “policing the past”. PSNI chief constables have repeatedly used this term to describe their investigatory responsibility over the Troubles. Despair at the task is implied and often stated. It is expensive, divisive, generally hopeless given the passage of time, and should have been resolved through political agreement at least a decade ago.
Unionists accuse Sinn Féin of relitigating the Troubles by supporting selective investigation of the past, undermining the PSNI in the process.
But Sinn Féin will inevitably support republican and nationalist victims of the Troubles, including claims brought by former IRA members and their families. The PSNI does not need unionists taking its side in these cases, adding to divisiveness. It needs fresh effort on a political agreement to take this poisoned chalice off its hands.
While Sinn Féin never hesitates to condemn dissident violence, it does exhibit some squeamishness over law and order approaches to dissident organisations. The same unease can sometimes be seen from other nationalist parties and civic institutions, North and South. Legitimate policing is criticised as heavy handed, lawful intelligence operations are regarded as dirty tricks and “justice campaigns” for prisoners are endlessly indulged, even after convictions are upheld on appeal.
This is where Sinn Féin and others might still have a question to answer.
They accept dissident violence is wrong, but do they fully accept the sole right of the state to pursue and punish it?