Amnesty proposal is Nothing New for Britain - Patrick Murphy, Irish News

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson described the legacy proposals as a chance to 'draw a line under the Troubles'.

Patrick Murphy

The surprising thing about Boris Johnson's proposed amnesty for all those who took part in the Troubles is that anyone is surprised by it.

As Mark Durkan reminded us, Dublin, SF and the DUP had agreed to the same British amnesty plan 16 years ago. That was an attempted political solution to a moral problem, which Johnson has now resurrected to airbrush 3,568 deaths and about 50,000 injuries from Irish history.

He has therefore gone beyond Napoleon's view that history is a fable agreed upon, claiming instead that history is a fable which never really happened.

It can be argued that when a war ends, that's the matter closed. But were the Troubles a war? The IRA said so at the time, but having lost, they later claimed it was a conflict. The British never regarded it as war, relegating it instead to civil unrest. (Although there were plenty of days in Belfast when it certainly felt like war.)

But the violence wasn't just a war, it was a protracted series of war crimes: Bloody Friday, Bloody Sunday, the Kingsmill massacre, the Ballymurphy massacre and widespread civilian slaughter by all sides, day after bloody day.

Some attacks, such as the Narrow Water killing of 18 paratroopers, were not a war crime, since an ambush on a military convoy is a valid part of war. (Whether it was a legitimate war is another point.) However, placing a bomb in a school bus to kill the UDR driver was certainly a war crime.

So Johnson aims to give an amnesty to probably hundreds of war criminals, including some within his armed forces.

This is nothing new for Britain. Although it took part in Nazi war criminal trials in 1945, its policy after 1948 was to deliver suspects to the country where the offences occurred.

But it refused to send suspects to communist states, so Britain effectively became a safe haven for Nazi war criminals. Westminster rejected legislation in 1991 to belatedly bring them to justice. Johnson is at least being consistent.

The much publicised explanation is that he fears some British soldiers would face justice for their actions here. That is only a small part of the reason.

The British establishment fears that if a soldier acted under orders, those above him would also have to face charges. If the soldier acted without orders, his commanding officers would have to explain why he escaped justice.

Then there is the issue of violence with political intent, which can only come from high level government decisions. Bloody Sunday for example, was political: it was a successful attempt to drive the civil rights movement off the streets and draw the IRA into a full scale war which the British would inevitably win. Johnson's amnesty lets Downing Street off the hook.

But why, you ask, would he be prepared to let the IRA walk free? The answer lies in standard British colonial history: it is easier to allow colonies (and we are one) to implement your policies rather than doing it yourself.

So when Johnson sees a SF-run, Stormont department using a private firm to cut disability payments, he knows that not only is it implementing what SF used to call British rule, it is delivering full scale Thatcherism.

Stormont's reaction to Johnson was to howl at the moon, by recalling the assembly to “debate” a motion of condemnation. Since everyone spoke against Boris, it was not so much a debate, more a competition to sound the most indignant. Sinn Féin won easily, because it elevated condemnation to sanctimonious indignation.

Outside Stormont, SF carried posters demanding, “No amnesty for British state forces”. A worthy sentiment, but the poster did not point out that IRA on-the-runs (presumably SF supporters) already have such an amnesty. (Maybe they were also granted amnesia?)

But it does not matter. War? There was no war and there were no war criminals. How do we know? Westminster intends to pass a law to prove it.