Opinion

Newton Emerson: What is stopping the PSNI moving against the east Belfast UVF?

Newton Emerson

Newton Emerson

Newton Emerson writes a twice-weekly column for The Irish News and is a regular commentator on current affairs on radio and television.

 Ian Ogle died after being attacked in east Belfast on January 27
 Ian Ogle died after being attacked in east Belfast on January 27  Ian Ogle died after being attacked in east Belfast on January 27

THE brutal murder of east Belfast man Ian Ogle has been blamed by his family on the UVF, which had been intimidating them for 18 months after a confrontation with Ogle’s son. The east Belfast UVF says it will offer “no protection” to the killers – a revealing statement of general contempt for the law.

Such contempt is justified while loyalists enjoy official protection. The community in Lower Newtownards Road, where Ogle was slain, will recall the UVF’s attempted murder in 2013 of local woman Jemma McGrath. The PSNI never solved that crime and could barely be bothered going through the motions of pretending to.

A vigil for the Ogle family this Wednesday brought 2,000 people onto the streets – a huge number, 10 times the size of rallies outside the city hall that attract far more media attention. Safety in numbers is required because nobody can count on the PSNI for protection when it cynically asks for help to put loyalists behind bars. Police know exactly who the east Belfast UVF are and have enough powers to act without exposing anyone else to intimidation. As that is clearly what the community wants them to do, what exactly is stopping them?

:::

THE DUP’s 10 MPs have once again been decisive at Westminster, which has voted to ditch the backstop and renegotiate the EU-UK Withdrawal Agreement.

Theresa May made wooing the DUP central when choosing this approach. Given the enormous political and procedural obstacles to renegotiation, it is obvious the prime minister’s real plan is to continue running down the clock until MPs accept they must choose between her deal or no deal.

As the DUP must realise this, the question is whether it is quietly on board for May’s deal, plus any face-saving fudge it can get, or whether it has matched her cynicism by stringing her along for a crash Brexit.

This is the game the hardline European Research Group (ERG) of Tories believe they are playing. The DUP is caught between them and the prime minister, having played both off against each other to minimise a backstop sea border. When the clock runs out the DUP will have to pick a side. At that point, as Sammy Wilson might say, it will be clear who has had their chips.

:::

THERESA May has received a firm vote of confidence in her Brexit strategy from the New IRA. In a statement admitting responsibility for last month’s Derry car bomb, the gang said: “All this talk of Brexit, hard borders, soft borders has no bearing on our actions and the IRA won’t be going anywhere. Our fight goes on.”

There are a number of ideological reasons why self-proclaimed keepers of the republican flame would want to put themselves above Brexit and indeed EU membership, which they see as just one more thing Sinn Féin has sold out on.

However, a practical interpretation of the New IRA’s statement is that it does not believe a hard border will happen, so there is no point trying to capitalise on it.

:::

SEVERAL London papers have breathlessly reported that MI5 has “more than 700 spies stationed in Belfast” to monitor dissident republicans.

As the intelligence services repeatedly say there are only around 200 active dissidents, this seems excessive.

MI5 has 4,000 staff in total and has previously said 15 per cent of its workload is related to Northern Ireland, where it has unique responsibility for republicans, with loyalists left to the PSNI.

That does imply 600 staff or three per dissident. On the other hand, MI5’s headquarters building in Holywood – its largest base outside London – is reported to have 300 staff. So where are the rest of them? Presumably it does no harm to keep everyone guessing.

:::

POSITIONS on Venezuela are now officially at odds within Irish nationalism. Sinn Féin has reiterated its support for Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro but the Council of the Socialist International, representing the world’s Labour parties and movements, has endorsed Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido at a meeting in the Dominican Republic, chaired by the president of Spain. The SDLP is a member of the Socialist International. Perhaps fortunately, it does not appear to have noticed.

:::

FORMER Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab has accused Taoiseach Leo Varadkar of leaking and misrepresenting a private conversation he had last October with Tánaiste Simon Coveney. The Irish government has tetchily replied: “There is no basis for this allegation.”

Dublin is taking the hapless Tory too seriously. The measure of Raab is that his civil servants used to dare each other to see how many double-a misspellings they could sneak into briefing documents before he would notice.

That must have been an easy challenge. Asked this week by Westminster’s Northern Ireland Affairs Committee if he has ever read the Good Friday Agreement, Raab waffled his way towards saying he had used it as a “reference tool”. The Agreement, on which Brexit now apparently hangs, runs to just 35 well-spaced pages.

Next time Raab tries blaming the Dublin for his woes, it should reply: “There is no baasis for this allegation.”

newton@irishnews.com