An Appalling Vista in North

Comment

The latest revelations that trusted Sinn Fein aide Denis Donaldson was a British informer for 20 years has thrown yet another spanner in the works for the peace process, and has created a mystery worthy of John Le Carre.

Because Donaldson was the main figure in the Stormontgate scandal which brought down the power-sharing executive three years ago, it is completely logical to assume that he was doing so at the behest of his British handlers.

At the time Donaldson was allegedly caught with top-secret papers in his home, including reports of communications between President George W. Bush and British Prime Minster Tony Blair on the North.

It now looks like the whole incident was a cleverly conceived plan to bring down the Executive and ensure that Sinn Fein was blamed for its failure.

If so it worked, and Northern Ireland has felt the cost of it since. It seems that elements in the British government may well have wanted Sinn Fein as part of the peace process, but wanted no part of them in government.

The fact that it was all, seemingly, a plot by securocrats opposed to Sinn Fein being in power boggles the mind if it is true.

That throws up the appalling vista that elements within the British government took down their own power sharing Executive rather than have any Sinn Fein involvement in government.

The fact that the Executive was lawfully elected and was a brave new attempt to create cross-party government in Northern Ireland makes this allegation even more serious.

Not since the Spycatcher affair, when MI5 agent Peter Wright alleged in a book of that name that 30 of his colleagues had succeeded in secretly blackening then British Prime Minster Harold Wilson and forced him from power, has such a serious allegation been made.

When you seek to overthrow a democratically elected government from within there is only one term for that type of behaviour — treason.

Yet to judge by the muted response and counter charges that it was all a Sinn Fein plot shows just how much normal politics has been corrupted by the extraordinary level of infiltration of the media and public discourse in the North.

Imagine if an allegation was made in America that a CIA plot centering around an informer had sought to bring down the president and freely elected government. The response would be immediate.

Yet that is what appears to have happened in Northern Ireland, and the reaction has been mainly to stifle a yawn. It shows just how far normal politics have sunk there.

Yes there are other explanations and other scenarios being bandied about, but we cannot lose sight of the fact that the man charged with bringing down the Stormont government was a secret British agent — and the documents that were found were located in his house.

It is hard to believe that Blair was part of the effort to bring down the Executive given the extraordinary amount of work he did to set it up.

What is much more likely is that the unelected cabal of spooks, Special Branch and other perfidious agents decided that the time had come to pull down the elected Executive.

To them democracy means nothing. It is a truly frightening and yes, appalling vista.