Don’t join ‘new’ British police

REPUBLICAN Sinn Féin, in its public statements at and since the 96th Ard-Fheis in Dublin during November has repeated its call that Irish people should not join the ‘new’ British police force.

The British government has always relied on coercive laws and armed militarised police to maintain its rule in Ireland. The primary function of any armed British police force in Ireland — RIC, RUC, or PSNI – has always been to uphold and maintain British rule here by physical force.

With the passing into law of the British Police Bill in November the framework for the renamed RUC has been set. Regardless of symbols, uniforms, names, badges, structures or the sectarian composition of the force, the underlying reality will not alter. What we will have is a force recruited, trained, motivated, armed and paid by the British government. That is why no young Irish person who gives allegiance to Ireland should have anything to do with it. And why the GAA should continue to ban British colonial police personnel from membership of the Association.

Lest we forget, the RUC has the dubious distinction of being the only western European police force since the German Nazi Gestapo to be found guilty of the torture of prisoners in their care by the European Commission on Human Rights.

This was the police force in the 1970s that Fr Denis Faul, opponent of torture and human rights activist, described (along with the UDR) as “sectarian terrorist forces”.

The same Denis Faul in a letter to the Irish News (November 24) now wants nationalists to join the renamed RUC, to join with the torturers of Irish people and assist them in perpetuating British rule here. History has shown us that English rule in Ireland cannot be sustained without the use of such methods.

It is worth noting that the British government-appointed Hunt Commission in 1969-70 was an earlier attempt at updating the RUC. In April 1970 it recommended that military duties be removed from the RUC and that it be partially disarmed. A new blue uniform was also recommended. The RUC was without some of its arms for about a month before it very quickly rearmed and the force reverted to its former role.

The Irish saying springs to mind: Cuir síoda ar ghabhair agus beidh sé ina ghabhar i gcónaí. There is no dressing up of a British colonial force in Ireland as anything but that.

In recent days commentators have been lining up to accuse the British government of “gutting” and “completely rejecting” the Patten proposals in the Police Bill 2000. Among the critics are a former Patten commissioner from Canada, Clifford Shearing, Paddy Hillyard, Mike Tomlinson and Brendan O’Leary.

The Sunday Business Post (November 26) editorial detailed how Patten was “gutted” to give more power and less accountability to the RUC Chief Constable, permitting him to prevent inquiries into police behaviour and restricting the influence of the much-vaunted local ‘police partnership boards’.

The Dublin paper said nobody should be surprised that “the British are almost congenitally incapable of honouring their commitments and treaties . . . within hours it was clear that the range of British commitments on policy, demilitarisation and judicial reform were not worth the paper they were written on”.

The SDLP (and the Provisionals?) are seemingly waiting for the implementation plan before joining Denis Faul, Maurice Hayes and Chris Patten in urging young Irish people to join the renamed RUC.

In the future if the ‘new-look’ RUC comes under attack will Denis Faul and Maurice Hayes advise these young people to leave or stay on and carry out their role as defenders of British rule?

After all, the old RIC was 80% Roman Catholic yet it was the backbone of British rule in Ireland until it was defeated in the early 1920s. Republican Sinn Féin warns of the danger of young Irish people becoming the cannon-fodder of a more updated British imperialism here.

Under ÉIRE NUA the police service would be administered by powerful local district councils with the avoidance of the potential conflict involved in people from one area policing another. This would be in the context of a British withdrawal and a federal and four provincial parliaments, including one for the nine counties of Ulster.

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