Comments by "Geoff Challis" (@Geffo555) on "Johnson condemns Labour’s ‘communist’ free broadband plan" video.
-
10
-
6
-
@johnathanpearson3203 . What someone said? Consider this simple chronology.
1980, October-December: British intelligence and civil service officials enter into talks with representatives of the Irish Republican Army. The backchannel communications are led by the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS or MI6) – chiefly the veteran intelligence officer Michael Oatley – and members of the Northern Ireland Office (NIO).
1981, March-April: British intelligence and civil service officials step up talks with representatives of the Irish Republican Army. The communications are now shared with the Prime Minister’s Office in Number 10 Downing Street.
1981, May-July: The UK premier, Margaret Thatcher MP, personally approves the aims and wording of the negotiations. The principal backchannel link is the Derry businessman Brendan Duddy, codenamed “Soon”.
1982, October-November: Backchannel communications are frozen.
1983, February: British Labour Party politician Ken Livingstone visits the Sinn Féin MP, Gerry Adams, in Belfast.
1983, July: Gerry Adams MP invited to London by UK Labour’s Ken Livingstone and Jeremy Corbyn MP.
1984: Gerry Adams MP invited to the Palace of Westminster, London, by Ken Livingstone and Jeremy Corbyn MP.
1989: With the approval of prime minister Margaret Thatcher MP, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Peter Brooke MP, and senior civil servants in the Northern Ireland Office begin work on a new negotiations’ policy with Sinn Féin and the Irish Republican Army, to be implemented the following year.
1989, December: In a carefully coded message to the Republican Movement, Peter Brooke MP admits that a “military defeat” of the IRA would be difficult to envisage, during an interview with the Press Association.
1990, June-August: Backchannel contacts between the UK and the Republican Movement are renewed.
1990, September 19: Following the Irish Republican Army’s attempted assassination of Sir Peter Terry, a former Air Chief Marshal of the British Armed Forces and Governor of Gibraltar, the British premier Margaret Thatcher MP admits in an unprecedented interview that the IRA was engaged in “guerrilla warfare” and was “acting under what they regard as rules of war”.
1990, October: Businessman Brendan Duddy arranges a meeting between Michael Oatley, the SIS/MI6 officer, and Martin McGuinness, a senior member of Sinn Féin and the Irish Republican Army in the city of Derry.
1990, November 9: Under the direction of Margaret Thatcher MP and the Cabinet Office in London, Peter Brooke MP delivers the “Whitbread speech”, a copy of which was passed in advance to Sinn Féin and the Irish Republican Army. Made in London, the speech stated that “the British Government has no selfish or strategic or economic interest in Northern Ireland“. This was the UK’s most public overture to the Republican Movement in two decades and judged by many to be the beginning of the Irish-British Peace Process of the 1990s.
1991-1993: The Derry backchannel is joined by two other interlocutors: Denis Bradley, a former local priest turned community leader, and Noel Gallagher, codenamed “Tax”. The latter is a trusted friend of Derryman Martin McGuinness, GOC of the IRA’s Northern Command, a member of the GHQ Staff and Army Council, and vice-president of Sinn Féin (Gallagher also acts as an intermediary for the Irish government in Dublin and Taoiseach, Albert Reynolds TD). The UK Security Service, the SS or MI5, strongly opposes the contacts with the IRA when they are revealed within the British government, in particular the involvement of the SIS-MI6. They are later joined in this opposition by the Royal Ulster Constabulary’s Special Branch and the British Army’s Intelligence Corps.
1991, April: Covert negotiations between the UK and the IRA leadership.
1991, June: Michael Oatley, the SIS/MI6 officer, is replaced by an individual calling himself “Fred”, but whose real name may have been Colin Ferguson or Robert McLarnon (or McLaren). He identifies himself as an intelligence officer with Britain’s Security Service or MI5 acting on behalf of Peter Brooke MP, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, and the UK’s new Conservative Party Prime Minister, John Major MP.
1991, August: Covert negotiations between the UK and the IRA leadership.
1991, September: Covert negotiations between the UK and the IRA leadership.
1991, October: Covert negotiations between the UK and the IRA leadership.
1991, November: Covert negotiations between the UK and the IRA leadership.
1992, January: Covert negotiations between the UK and the IRA leadership.
1992, January 11: The establishment Times newspaper in London publishes a leaked document offering a “depressingly realistic” assessment of the Irish Republican Army by General Sir John Wilsey, the General Officer Commanding British Forces in Northern Ireland. In a secret presentation to colleagues and officials the British commander admitted that the “defeat of the IRA is not on the horizon” and that it was better led, equipped, resourced and more secure than at any time in its history. The newspaper article went on to state that the organisation was a “highly disciplined and political, motivated guerrilla army”, rubbishing government claims to the contrary as simplistic “propaganda”. The leak was widely assumed to be another overt signal from London to the leadership of the Republican Movement indicating a genuine change of policies in Downing Street and Whitehall.
1992, May: Covert negotiations between the UK and the IRA leadership. British team now answering to the new Conservative Party Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Sir Patrick Mayhew MP.
1992, October: Covert negotiations between the UK and the IRA leadership.
1992, December: Covert negotiations between the UK and the IRA leadership.
1993, January: Covert negotiations between the UK and the IRA leadership.
1993, February: Covert negotiations between the UK and the IRA leadership.
1993, April: Covert negotiations between the UK and the IRA leadership.
1993, May: Covert negotiations between the UK and the IRA leadership.
1993, June: Covert negotiations between the UK and the IRA leadership.
1993, July: Covert negotiations between the UK and the IRA leadership.
1993, August: Covert negotiations between the UK and the IRA leadership.
1993, September: Covert negotiations between the UK and the IRA leadership.
1993, December: Covert negotiations between the UK and the IRA leadership.
1994, April 6-8: Temporary cessation of hostilities by the Irish Republican Army as part of secret negotiations with the UK.
1994, August 31: The Irish Republican Army announces its penultimate ceasefire after three years of intense negotiations between itself and the British government.
1996, February 9: The Irish Republican Army ends its 1994 ceasefire, resuming limited military operations in the Six Counties and the UK under a policy known as TUAS (Tactical Use of Armed Struggle). Intermittent communications with the UK government of Conservative Party Prime Minister, John Major MP, follow.
1996, November: Tony Blair MP, the leader of the UK Opposition Labour Party, and Labour’s Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Mo Mowlam MP, use a meeting in London between Sinn Féin and Labour members Ken Livingstone MP, Jeremy Corbyn MP and Alan Simpson MP, to investigate the Republican Movement’s position on future peace talks.
1997, July 19: The Irish Republican Army announces its final ceasefire, to come into effect on July 20, following pre- and post-general election negotiations with the UK Labour Party leader and newly elected Prime Minister, Tony Blair MP.
(2005, July 28: The Irish Republican Army announces a formal end to the conflict.)
Certain people just want to use the IRA connection as a way to discredit Corbyn. But you'd also have to discredit a lot of other people.
4
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
2
-
2
-
1