Beginning of the End of Northern Ireland?

[Former President tack50]

This is going to be a hugely hot and controversial take, but in a way I think that the Good Friday Agreement was a mistake. You do not negotiate with terrorists. It would have been vastly preferrable for the IRA to have been utterly crushed than for the GFA to happen.

Spain was able to fully and thoroughly crush the Basque terrorists and terrorism in the region; and this is in spite of Basque nationalists being clearly a majority! (unlike NI where Irish nationalsits only make up like 35-40%) What is the UK's excuse?

In fact, I'd have gone a step further and banned all parties with terrorist or paramilitary links. That of course means Sinn Fein would not exist, but also parties like the Ulster Democratic Party. The DUP would have also been banned (indeed the only "legal parties in NI would be the reasonable parties of UUP, SDLP and Alliance pretty much)

And yes, I know the UK government supported the unionist terrorists sometimes. That was wrong and 100% condemnable; but it also happened here (see: GAL and various other similar groups) and we still crushed terrorism thoroughly. What is the UK's excuse for having to sell out to the IRA instead of forcing them to wave the white flag?

[Former President tack50]

This is going to be a hugely hot and controversial take, but in a way I think that the Good Friday Agreement was a mistake. You do not negotiate with terrorists. It would have been vastly preferrable for the IRA to have been utterly crushed than for the GFA to happen.

We tried "crushing" the IRA for long enough, and for a while (until the late 1960s) it even worked to a degree. There are plenty in the British establishment who would have continued to pursue it were it a viable prospect, which in itself strongly suggests that it actually was not.

There are still lots of avenues that were never tried though? First and foremost of course, Sinn Fein should have been made illegal.

Still, even if completely crushing the IRA was impossible, the question then is why did the UK lose "the war" and have to get a negotiated settlement. A settlement that includes the fact that if NI wants they can have a referendum on joining Ireland! (which would never ever happen here, though Scotland shows the UK is way more permissive on that regard)

[Former President tack50]

This is going to be a hugely hot and controversial take, but in a way I think that the Good Friday Agreement was a mistake. You do not negotiate with terrorists. It would have been vastly preferrable for the IRA to have been utterly crushed than for the GFA to happen.

Except the GFA was the defeat of the IRA. It was more or less what the UK government had agreed to at Sunningdale in 1973, 25 years previously. The IRA armed campaign during the intervening 25 years was to force a united Ireland by collapsing the British state in Northern Ireland militarily; the reason Adams, McGuinness and co. abandoned the armed campaign was because they saw that was impossible to achieve. So the Provisional IRA decommissioned and went into electoral politics.

Ok, I guess I'll slightly change that to "unconditional surrender from the IRA" (as opposed to the "negotiated treaty" that was the GFA)

[Former President tack50]

With politicians who have attitudes like this, it's honestly a miracle that Spain somehow managed to solve the ETA situation and that there isn't an Exèrcit Republicà Català (yet).

There actually used to be one!. They were finally crushed and the white flag waved in 1991. Their toll stands at 200 attacks, a couple dozen injured and 5 dead (4 of which were terrorists messing up explosives lol).

However their highest profile attack is the kidnapping of Federico Jiménez Losantos in 1981, a radio presenter who is nowadays known for his far right takes and hilarious nicknames of several politicians; though back then he was just centered on the defence of the Spanish language in Catalonia (he was even nominally left wing at the time and ran in the 1980 Catalan election as the candidate of the "Socialist Party of Andalucia"!)

However, as critical as I am of them, I will always praise Catalan secessionists for being 100% non violent and not resorting to terrorism (unlike the Basque country or NI). Indeed this is also a reason why they are so popular. Just look at the Basque Country actually. Excluding the 2009 election there, nationalist parties used to get somewhere around 55-65% of the vote on average. However the pro-terrorism HB only got about 17-18%*; meaning not just all Spanish unionists, but also a majority of Basque nationalists, rejected violence and terrorism.

Terrorism was also a very convenient excuse for unionists to reject any talks; a common line in those days was "With violence we cannot talk about anything. Once we have peace we can start talking" (which we now know was a convenient excuse but people didn't know that at the time )

I have absolutely 0 doubts that a Catalan version of ETA would be extremely divisive among separatists themselves, and only get perhaps 5-10% support at best; compared to the 45-52% that secessionists enjoy now with their peaceful methods.

^{*: It gets slightly more complicated as their support stayed constant throughout the 80s and 90s, then fell in half after an attempt at a Basque version of the GFA failed because of the terrorists. I am not going to claim that the Spanish government never negotiated; but one of the lines of the GFA (giving NI the right to a referendum to join the ROI) would have never been accepted by any Spanish government.}

It was also mainly to point out to tack50 that Unionists are not innocent in this whole process, no matter how much he wants to project his Spanish centralism (another counter-productive ideoogy that is also radicalising the Catalan and Basque movements faster) on the conflict.

Pretty sure I mentioned in a previous post I also think several unionist parties in NI should have been banned just like I think Sinn Fein should have been banned (most notably the DUP, though the clearer cases involve the paramilitary based Vanguard or PUP). Northern Ireland's politics are that terrible; to the point where you have to ban the parties of >50% of the electorate (as of now, I imagine in the 70s, 80s and 90s thankfully cooler heads were prevailing in the electorate)

Of course I do not really trust the UK to do that since the loyalist terrorists would have been helping them; but in an "ideal" world, the loyalist terrorists would have been crushed and repressed just as hard as the IRA.

PS: I am definitely on the pro-Catalonia / pro-regionalism side of the Spanish debate compared to the national median Definitely not a centralist.

"Crushing ETA and not surrendering" was a thing shared by all parties here back in the day; though all Spanish governments did attempt peace talks that failed at several points because as I mention the main aim of Basque secessionists (a referendum) is something that the UK had to concede, but that no Spanish government ever would.


Ironically after a quick read of the very few differences between Sunningdale and the GFA; it is worth noting that a progressive Spanish government could have passed something like Sunningdale; but not the GFA. Self-determination being the key red line.