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Jim Duffy ✍ A core problem with neutrality in Ireland is that absolutely nobody agrees on what Irish neutrality means. It is a kind of "Whatever you're having yourself!" mish-mash.

Some people, including the president, thinks Irish neutrality is about pacifism - despite neutrality and pacifism being almost exact opposites, and almost all neutrals being armed neutrals willing to fight to defend their independence. The pacific neutrals freak out at the very thought that Ireland should have proper defence on the scale normal in neutrals, thinking it "militarism".
 
Then there are those who think neutrality means being neutral in all conflicts. That is closer to what the word means. However, funnily, those who insist on strict political neutrality on one conflict don't see the conflict with arguing for taking sides in other conflicts. We heard an example of it with Richard Boyd Barrett, who on RTÉ Radio almost had heart failure when told that it was hypocritical to demand political neutrality on Russia's war against Ukraine and then demand people championing the side of the Palestinians and were anti-Israel. You can no more be politically half-neutral than be half-pregnant. He argued that Israel committed war crimes. It did. So did Russia in Ukraine, which is why the ICC has an international arrest warrant for Putin over war crimes, crimes against humanity and possible genocide.
 
It appears this form of neutrality is simply about the left being able to pick and choose where to be neutral and where not to be. They endlessly sympathetic towards Russia - even though it has a far right government - as a hangover from its old Communist days. They hate America, not just under Trump but always. They hate Israel with a vengeance, and are unambiguously supportive of Palestine. That is the case no matter what either do.
 
Their concept of neutrality is a pick'n'mix - reflecting their own ideological agendas. Yet political neutrality in the strictest sense is supposed to mean you remain neutral on all issues no matter what actions are carried out by belligerents.
 
The state's definition of neutrality is not, and never has been, politically neutral. External Affairs minister Sean MacBride in 1949 made it unambiguously clear that Ireland was on the side of western democracies and hostile to the Soviet Union and Communist world.
 
In 1949 McBride addressed the Seanad on the Atlantic Pact, the treaty which founded NATO. He said that:

based directly on the contents of the Atlantic Pact, based on military considerations, based on public policy, the Atlantic Pact is heralded as the new instrument of international co-operation in the North Atlantic. It was intended to preserve if you like, the democratic way of life among the nations of the North Atlantic.
With that, we are in complete agreement. We approve of the Atlantic Pact and I think that, if it were not for the fact that a portion of our country is wrongfully occupied by Britain, we would have been in the Atlantic Pact. Theoretically, its aims, its purpose are in accord with our own wishes and our own desire.

Throughout the Cold War, Ireland was closely aligned diplomatically with the US and the Western democracies in various ways. Taoiseach Sean Lemass in 1962 said:

NATO is necessary for the preservation of peace and the protection of the countries of western Europe, including this country. Although we are not members of NATO, we are fully in agreement with its aims.

Successive Taoisigh and Ministers for External/Foreign Affairs have said the same - that Ireland is unambiguously part of the west, supported the west, and entirely opposed to the Communist Bloc. It didn't just say it but implemented it - for example, during the Cuban Missile Crisis and US blockade on Cuba. Eastern Bloc planes tried to breach the blockade by flying contraband in. Given the length of the journey their planes had to land for refuelling at Shannon Airport. Lemass ordered the Gardaí to seize all contraband Eastern Bloc countries were smuggling to Cuba.
 
Ireland like rest of the west refused point blank to recognise the USSR's illegal seizure of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, and maintained diplomatic relations with their governments-in-exile until the fall of communism.

So the idea sometimes stated that the Irish state was politically neutral is disproven by the evidence. It was unambiguously on the side of the west, and indeed would have joined NATO in 1949 if it wasn't for partition. It was never on the side of the communist bloc, or Russia post-communism.
 
The trouble with neutrality in Ireland is that different groups in Ireland interpret the term to mean different, often contradictory, things. Each talk with certainty about their meaning as 'the' meaning. Arguably the only technically correct one in Ireland is obviously the state's one, as it is the one Ireland Inc carries out. However even there things are not straight-forward. Ireland was officially neutral in World War II, yet was secretly aiding the Allies.
 
If one goes by the definition of neutrality in the Second Hague Convention Title V, Ireland arguably wasn't neutral at all, as it consistently broke the obligations of neutrality in Hague. It failed to treat all belligerents equally. It failed to keep any military from the belligerents that landed in the state out of the war, but enabled Allied belligerents to travel to Northern Ireland and rejoin the war (breaking Article 11). It negotiated a deal to allow British soldiers enter the state and travel to it to defend it against Nazi attack (breach of Articles 2 and 5). It knowingly did not ensure its actions and aid were applied "impartially applied by it to both belligerents." (Article 11).
 
Then again, every country broke Hague. It was so weak, countries intending to break it didn't opt to leave it but stayed in and broke it anyway. It was broken so consistently that Hague II Title V has long been effectively dead, and none of the five remaining neutrals in Europe (Ireland, Austria, Switzerland, Cyprus and Malta) would qualify as neutral under it.

⏩ Jim Duffy is a writer-historian.

The Trouble With Neutrality

Irish Examiner 📰 Written by Tom O’Connor.

The economy cannot survive without migration, so the Government must use the welfare state to insulate the poorest against far-right narratives

Ireland needs an increased flow of migrants to sustain the economy in the coming years.

However, the State needs to be far more progressive as a welfare state if it is to prevent the continuing rise of anti-immigrant and racist sentiment, where vulnerable and deprived people are having their fears hijacked by the hard-right.

The CSO published population and labour-force projections last year, starting with Census 2022 up to 2057. In order to keep the population from falling, on average 2.2 children need to be born per woman each year. This total fertility rate (TFR) of 2.2 is what’s need to keep the population replacing itself — known as the replacement rate.

From the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s, this rate stood at close to four, meaning that a typical Irish family had four children. It stayed up at 2.5 until the late 1980s, but by 1990, it had fallen to 2.12, meaning that, in the absence of net inward migration (which did happen, and which fuelled the high-growth Irish economy for most of the time since then), the population would have started to fall.

As of Census 2022, the TFR has dropped sharply to 1.55, and is projected by the CSO to drop to as low as 1.3 over the next 33 years. The high fertility rates in the 30 years from 1960 to 1990 meant that Ireland had a large young working population from the late 1970s. But these generations have started to reach retirement age, while we lost a large number of non-returning Irish emigrants in the 1980s.

So, in the coming 30 years or so, the previously large young working age Irish population will get old and very old. There were 780,000 people over 65 in Ireland in 2022.

Continue @ Irish Examiner.

Government Needs To Tackle Issues Sending Desperate People Into Arms Of Far Right

Aide-Memoire ★ Written by Aaron Edwards.

The publication of the Operation Kenova report into a British spy network inside the IRA has left one trail to run cold: Collusion in the murder of Loyalists.

It all started with a meeting I held with a source in a flat in Portadown.

It was the summer of 2015 and I was in the town to interview people who were close to the former mid-Ulster UVF commander, Billy Wright.

These interviews would form a key component of my book, UVF: Behind the Mask.

It was an eventful trip.

I met one person who had been part of Wright’s ‘team’.

I also met a former loyalist prisoner who had been friends with Wright. He made a quip about hardline loyalists “always meeting the same fate.”

He then told me the story of the prominent Belfast UVF commander, John Dowey Bingham.

Bingham had been assassinated by a Provisional IRA death squad on 14 September 1986 at his home in Ballysillan, north Belfast.

The former prisoner said he believed Bingham would have survived the attack if he had received the medical attention he required after he was shot.

He further alleged how the police, who promptly arrived on the scene minutes after the shooting, “let John bleed out.”

Apparently local people believed the IRA hit team had been permitted to enter the area “under the watchful eye of the RUC.”

I said I’d look into the case, if only to satisfy my own curiosity.

I assumed such claims were more likely to be fiction, rather than fact.

When I got back to Belfast I asked a contact if he knew anyone in John Bingham’s family who would speak to me about his murder.

My contact made arrangements for us to meet a relative of Bingham’s: John’s daughter, Elizabeth Bingham.
Elizabeth Bingham at the graveside of her father, John Dowey Bingham.

We met in mid-November 2016 and talked at length about her father’s murder.

I shared with her the allegations I’d heard in Portadown.

She asked me if I could help her find out more about what really happened.

I agreed.

And thus began one of the most detailed open-source investigations I’ve ever been involved in.

I didn’t know it at the time but it would take us into the heart of allegations of collusion between the British state, the Provisional IRA and, perhaps most damningly of all, the complicity of so-called loyalists in the deaths of their own comrades.

The Life and Death of John Bingham

John Dowey Bingham was a life-long loyalist and a senior UVF commander from Ballysillan.

It has been widely reported that Bingham was responsible for directing terrorist activities in the 1970s and 1980s.

In an interview with one of Bingham’s associates in Belfast for Behind the Mask, he told me, “John was the quintessential terrorist but I would have followed him to the gates of hell.”

Bingham was arrested and charged on the evidence of UVF supergrass Joe Bennett.

The supergrass trials subsequently collapsed and those detained were released.

Loyalists freed after the collapse of the supergrass trials in the 1980s. John Bingham (front in striped shirt and jeans) smiling. Centre left in polo shirt is Frenchie Marchant, also believed to have been murdered by British agents in the IRA.

Bingham promptly returned to UVF activities.

In the words of his close friend George Seawright, he would become a “legend in his own lifetime.”

Emily O’Reilly of the Sunday Tribune met Bingham in the summer of 1986 and described in detail what led Seawright to make this claim. Her dispatch makes for fascinating, albeit grim, reading.

After Bingham’s death he became the subject of wild allegations, particularly from the veteran Guardian journalist Nicholas Davies, some of which now seem preposterous.

In death Bingham’s reputation grew in the telling, with Davies and others accusing him of collusion with the British state.

Little did anyone know how the collusion they alleged did actually exist but not in the way they alleged. Rather, it existed between the British agents inside the Provisional IRA and their handlers.

In fact, it would later transpire how it was the main reason for John Bingham’s murder.

Reopening A Cold Case

For decades the public knew very little of the facts relating to John Bingham’s violent death.

They knew Bingham had UVF connections.

They knew he had been implicated in the supergrass trials.

They also knew he had been assassinated by the IRA in 1986.

And that was it.

All the rest was speculation.

My first task was to establish the basic facts of his murder.

I knew the best way to do this was to request the release of the inquest file on John Bingham.

This had been under lock and key since the Coroner’s Court returned an open verdict in the late 1980s.

Under the Freedom of Information Act, I managed to force the release of the file in 2016. I received a copy in the post.

Oddly, perhaps even intentionally, the file was never listed as open on the PRONI catalogue.

In order to share it with Liz, I enlisted the help of seasoned researcher and campaigner Clifford Peeples to help walk her through the process of obtaining a copy of the file.

After he consulted on the Bingham file with Liz, Clifford found serious discrepancies in the legal documentation.

Very simply this took two forms.

First, there was evidence of the getaway vehicle used by the IRA having been tampered with.

The white Renault used in the murder had been found a short time later in Jamaica Court in Ardoyne.

Back then it was standard protocol for the RUC to call in the local Army Ammunition Technical Officer (ATO) to clear suspect vehicles of any potential dangers such as booby trap devices.

Crucially, the ATO from nearby Girdwood Barracks reported in his deposition how the car keys were still in the ignition.



The Getaway Vehicle with Keys in the Ignition - Now You See Them . . . 

However, after a stint in the RUC impound the ignition of the car was tampered to make it look like it had been “hot wired”.



NowYou Don't!

The second discrepancy was potentially the most serious.

It involved the murder weapons.

In the The Bingham Report, Peeples linked the weapons used to other killings carried out by the Provost.

In a rudimentary link analysis of the firearms and ballistics, he was able to conclude the high possibility these weapons were part of the same dump used by the IRA in killing their own people.


Elizabeth Bingham (centre) at the launch of the report into the murder of John Bingham, June 2017.

These revelations were explosive.

Under normal circumstances though they might have been ignored.

Clifford’s report formally made the claim of collusion between the British state and its agents.

Fortunately, there was now a mechanism available for Liz and her family to have these assertions tested.

In 2016 the PSNI launched Operation Kenova to investigate the involvement of a British agent inside the IRA, codenamed “Stakeknife”, in the murder of up to 40 people.

Most of these killings related to the IRA’s Internal Security Unit known as the “Nutting Squad,” of which Stakeknife had risen to become second-in-command.

It was enough circumstantial evidence to persuade the newly appointed investigation lead, John Boutcher, to ask for the Bingham case be taken on by Op Kenova. This was formally agreed with the PSNI Chief Constable.

In assisting Liz with her search for justice, we helped her compile evidence, which she then presented to the Kenova team.

Liz was also ably assisted by her solicitor, John Greer, of Reavey and Company on the Shankill Road.
Liz Bingham (centre) with a relative of another alleged Stakeknife murder
victim and their respective legal representatives © Aaron Edwards

Yet, the path engaging with Kenova was fraught with difficulties.

Liz faced serious obstacles in her search for justice.

The time taken by Kenova to complete their work was one such obstacle. The passage of time, as we all know, made securing evidence and testimony more challenging.

Another obstacle was resources. On this point the dedicated family liaison process put in place by the Kenova really paid off. It gave Liz a point of contact to assist her through the criminal investigation process.

Ironically, these constraints paled into insignificance when it became clear the main obstacle was from the opposition of certain members of Liz’s own community to her search for justice.

“Stay away from those people”

One of those people who sought to deter us from investigating John Bingham’s murder was the late PUP spokesman Ken Wilkinson.

Ken was one of those curious individuals who joined the UVF later in life after a short stint in the part-time C Company of 1/9 UDR in Antrim.

Ken was renowned for having been involved in an incident in the mid-1990s in which an off-duty RUC officer was assaulted.

He was subsequently handed a two-year suspended sentence for doling out a nasty beating to the officer at Antrim’s British Legion Club in November 1995. After kicking and head-butting the policeman, Wilkinson told him, “You fucking speak or mention this to anyone and I’ll have you shot!”

Judge James Brady recommended Wilkinson “stop getting drunk and stop assaulting people.”

Coincidentally, another loyalist, Billy Wright, was jailed around the same time for 8 years for similar threats to kill.

Ken had a reputation for throwing his weight around.

He was known for acting as an unofficial envoy for the UVF Brigade Staff, a role which frequently brought him into conflict with others.

He could be blunt, abrasive and, at times, overly aggressive.

I was reminded of it first-hand when I took a phonecall from him in late June 2017.

After giving me a dressing down - I assumed for something he had heard and not read in my latest book, UVF: Behind the Mask - Ken became increasingly agitated.

He ranted about “some of those people” who I was “associating with” who, he said, I needed to know weren’t to be trusted.”

“Stay away from those people,” he repeated. “Billy Mitchell would be turning in his grave if he knew who you were hanging around with now,” he said, losing his cool as he raised his voice at me down the phone.

I must confess, I wasn’t sure what Ken was getting at.

Then it clicked.

Liz had published her report into the murder of her father a few weeks earlier. Around the same time I launched my book on the UVF.

Still, I found it odd that a member of the PUP - who I’d known for years - would ring me out of the blue to give me “some friendly advice” regarding “this business about John Bingham. I’m handling it, right,” he said pointedly and hung up.

I’m still puzzled as to why loyalists would want to discourage other loyalists from investigating the death of a loyalist. I’ll return to this point in a later post.

The key point in all of this is what really mattered for Liz was finding out the truth.

And Kenova assured her they’d get to the bottom of her father’s murder, one way or another.
Where is the Justice for Loyalist Victims?

John Bingham’s death proves that a paradox exists in Northern Ireland.

That someone widely reported as having been a “perpetrator” can also be regarded as a “victim.”

This is, of course, a highly controversial statement, as the current Justice Minister Naomi Long has recently discovered.

But it is a point of view shared by the family members of IRA and INLA members killed during the Troubles.

These families have continued to lobby the British state for the truth about the unsolved murders of their loved ones.

Victims families are a powerful lobby group.

That much is certain.

What is also certain is they are divided.

Deeply divided.

Just like Northern Irish society, politics and culture more broadly.

Speak to loyalists who have been involved in supporting campaigns for truth around the murders of loyalists and they will tell you of a “two-tiered justice system” in play.

They point to the absence of legacy investigations into perennial atrocities like the Shankill bomb of October 1993 and a range of other cases. They also point to the way the PSNI and courts treat loyalists who find themselves caught up in the criminal justice system.

Their belief is they have no automatic right to expect justice.

Liz Bingham was one of those sceptics who believed the law, as my late grandfather, a lifelong loyalist himself, used to say was “crooked.”

But she never gave up on demanding justice for herself, her family or her community.

She worked constructively with the Kenova team.

Finally, it seemed to pay off.

On 27 August 2019, Liz sent me a WhatsApp message. She was quietly confident her father’s case was being expedited and moved to prosecution stage:

I’m waiting on the PPS making a decision. Boutcher seems to think it will be soon. He says if they don’t publish he will release a document to me and into the public detailing the whole truth about my dad’s murder so either way I will get the truth and so will the world. He says he knows from start to end every detail and who did what when, he says there is no unanswered question as he has it all. Just sitting waiting on the call. Patience isn’t my thing but I think I’m handling it well as can be expected.

Subsequently Liz received the following WhatsApp message via one of the family liaison officers a few months later:

Today 2/10/19 I delivered a series of case files to the Director of Public Prosecutions (NI) seeking charging decisions in relation to a number of Operation Kenova murder investigations and other related serious crimes.

Prior to this becoming a matter of public record I wanted to inform you personally Elizabeth that the case of John Bingham features as one of the files that has formed part of this submission. I recognise that as a result of this significant update you and your family may have a number of questions of me.

In the first instance your dedicated Family Liaison Officer XXX will endeavour to answer your questions.

Please be aware however, that due to the legal sub-judice he may not be able to answer specific questions relating to your loved one’s investigation.

In the coming weeks myself and Keith Surtees will be arranging appointments to meet with you personally where I hope we will be able to answer any remaining questions you may have.

And after that the lines of communication seemed to run cold.

We now know why.

In the publication of the final Kenova report the following lines of inquiry were investigated by the team with respect to the Bingham case:

FRU handlers were aware of the identities of those involved in the murder shortly after it was carried out.


FRU handlers failed to pass the relevant intelligence to the RUC SB.


An intelligence report containing the names of the suspects was removed from the relevant Army file.


One of the suspects involved in the murder was a FRU agent.


One of the suspects involved had been observed on a number of occasions in the area near to the scene in the days leading up to the attack.

Despite these very serious allegations, the PPS decided no-one was to be held accountable for John Bingham’s murder.

No one.

Let that sink in.

After an exhausted investigation by Liz Bingham and the compilation of evidence of criminal culpability by the Kenova team, the state decided not to seek prosecutions of those individuals who may be responsible.

Liz Bingham died in May 2023 and did not live to see the outcome of the Kenova investigation with respect to her father.

John Bingham’s surviving family had duly notified on 1st April 2024 of the:

‘no prosecution’ decision taken on the additional John Bingham murder file ‘which named three civilian suspects who were all alleged to have been members of PIRA, but which did not involve any alleged connections to the agent Stakeknife and was therefore dealt with separately by PPSNI. No public statement was made in respect of this decision, but the family of the victim were informed of the reasons for it by letter.

A Legacy of Spies

Today there are many families reeling at the news of how, after £47.5 million being spent on Op Kenova, nobody has been charged.

Well, to be exact, only Freddie Scappaticci, the second-in-command of the IRA’s infamous “Nutting Squad” had been charged. Ironically, his crime was not in relation to the murderous activities he was involved in but in relation to extreme animal pornography.

Incidentally, this is the kind of deviant activity enterprising spooks the world over utilise as leverage in their pitch to recruit agents.

As far as the Kenova report goes, we are led to believe Stakeknife became an agent because of the promise of money, his hatred for the IRA leadership and security for his family.

The former Military Intelligence Officer Ian Hurst and journalist Greg Harkin, who originally brought the Stakeknife case to public attention, have questioned the professional competence of the Kenova team.

Writing in the Irish News on the morning of the report’s release, they alleged it amounted to little more than “fairy tales.”

In fact, having written a book on intelligence matters involving the running of Agents of Influence inside the IRA, I would say the victim’s families likely have more questions today than when this major investigation started a decade ago.

One thing is certain though.

Whatever we now know about the British state’s complicity in the IRA’s killing of suspected informers, we still know a lot less about their killing of loyalists.

Crucially, we know next to nothing about the involvement of agents and informers inside loyalist paramilitary groups who acted with the same impunity as Stakeknife.

Will there be an ‘Op Kenova’ style investigation into these serious allegations?

I won’t hold my breath.

Aaron Edwards is the author of critically acclaimed books, UVF: Behind the Mask and Agents of Influence: Britain’s Secret Intelligence War Against the IRA. His next book, Enemies Within, on the use of secret agents inside the UDA/UFF, will be published by Merrion Press in 2026.

Stones Left Unturned 🪶 Op Kenova, Collusion And The IRA Assassination Of John Bingham

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of One Thousand Nine Eight Hundred And Thirteen

 

A Morning Thought @ 2994

Frankie Quinn with a poem from his expansive body of work. 

Darkness

Darkness She peered through veiled eyes where darkness
 Holds clouded thought in misty confusion
 Will this end before I do? 
♞♜♝
Bring me to the river, drench my face
Open my mouth and pull the words from me
I Can't Fucking Talk
♞♜♝
Scream from belly churning emptiness Why? 
Who is there to carry my understanding? 
Ask Me, Just Ask Me, I will tell you to lift me 
♞♜♝
But drop the pitiful Shit, walk with my blackness
Cap the charge of thundering huffs in empty
 Hollow cave, let me rest in your mind . . . 
♞♜♝
Place me in the water stand on my chest 
Hold me below and watch distorted features 
Pale complexion dissolve.

⏩ Frankie Quinn is a former republican prisoner who is now a community activist. He is the author of Open Gates, a book of poetry.   

Darkness

RTE ★ Written by Vincent Kearney and Conor Macauley. Recommended by Christy Walsh.

A major report dealing with some of the most controversial aspects of the Troubles has found no evidence of collusion on the part of the British state in the 1974 Dublin-Monaghan bombings.

Among the other issues the Kenova Final Report addressed was the role of the British Army's top agent in the IRA.

The report was commissioned by the PSNI in 2016 following a direction of NI's Public Prosecution Service.

The bombings in Dublin and Monaghan on 17 May 1974 claimed the lives of 34 people.

There had long been a suspicion that the UVF, which claimed the attack, would not have had the necessary expertise to carry out such a co-ordinated attack in two places on the same day.

"The review has not identified any evidence or intelligence which would indicate that British Security Forces colluded with the UVF to carry out the attacks in Dublin or Monaghan, nor has any evidence of state collusion been identified," the report says.

It also says it found "no specific intelligence" which, if acted upon, could have prevented the atrocity.

Continue @ RTE.

Report Finds No Evidence Of Collusion In Dublin-Monaghan Bombings

Barry Gilheany ✍ It was the ultimate bitter-sweet moment for the long campaign for the loved ones of the 97 Liverpool supporters unlawfully killed at the 1989 FA Cup semi-final between their team and Nottingham Forest at the Leppings Lane end of the Hillsborough stadium, home of Sheffield Wednesday. 

Last week, Britain’s Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) after a fourteen year investigation into the policing of the Hillsborough disaster found that twelve police officers, most of them senior, would have faced disciplinary proceedings for gross misconduct if they were still serving for the catalogue of failings set out in the IOPC’s final report.[1]

Almost in symmetry in terms of time with the experience of the relatives of the Bloody Sunday campaign who had to wait for 38 years between the occurrence of the atrocity in 1972 and the vindication of the total innocence of those 14 murdered by the Parachute Regiment and the publication of the Savile Report in 2010, the IOPC report represents the definitive account of the innocence of the Hillsborough 97 and the malfeasance of the state actors involved; 36 years after the event. In the cases of both campaigns death, infirmity, retirement, and the near impossibility of securing the sufficient evidence for successful prosecution due to the lengthy time lapses has robbed them of their proper days in court. Hence, justice delayed and denied. However, despite the lack of legal restitution for the relatives of both most acts of monstrous and long running injustices; both stand triumphant at the bars of history and morality. Hence the delivery of eternal justice that is referenced in the title of article.

The stories of both campaigns have been well chronicled, but the parallels are well worth recounting. In the immediate aftermath of the traumatic event, the forces of the state try to cover their tracks by the spreading of lies about the victims. In the case of Hillsborough, South Yorkshire police officers in collaboration with a local Tory MP fed the notorious calumnies that Liverpool supporters stole possessions from the dead and in states of inebriation urinated at the scene in support of the false narrative that supporters were drunk, came in large numbers without tickets and had arrived late. Post Bloody Sunday, the British Information Bureau planted stories in the press that four of the dead were in possession of nail bombs and at least one of the deceased belonged to the junior IRA.

Just as the Bloody Sunday relatives had to fight the whitewash of the Widgery Report in April 1972 which found that the actions of the soldiers on that day were justified on the grounds that they were responding to possible threats from armed individuals, so the Hillsborough campaigners had to fight to overcome the first inquest into the loss of life which returned an open verdict which the High Court in 1993 refused the families’ application to quash. The Bloody Sunday relatives did early on have the moral force of the local coroner who at the inquest that the soldiers involved that day “had committed wanton murder.”

Over the subsequent decades, investigative journalism and powerful documentary dramas steadily uncovered the truth that the bereaved had always known and exposed it to the wider public. The drama doc made by acclaimed author and film maker Jimmy McGovern established that some of the deceased were actually alive after the coroner’s 3.15 time of death pronouncement. Changes in political environments along with the patient but exhausting efforts of the campaigners led to the Savile Inquiry being set up former PM Tony Blair shortly after his election and to the setting up of the Hillsborough Independent Inquiry on the instigation of then Labour Minister and current Greater Manchester Mayor' Andy Burnham' with the words “Justice for the 96” ringing in his ears after addressing a 20th anniversary commemoration at Anfield in April 2009.

The IOPC listed six gross misconduct allegations against the late Peter Wright, Chief Constable of South Yorkshire at the time of the disaster, for seeking to minimise the force’s responsibility onto the victims, who were Liverpool football club supporters. The report chronicles how no disciplinary proceedings came to be taken against any of the officers on duty that day, including the match commander, David Duckenfield, for the notorious lie that he spun as the disaster developed; informing football authorities that Liverpool supporters had forced upon an exit gate[2] when in fact it was his decision to open an entry gate to already overcrowded Leppings Lane that directly contributed to the fatal crushing.

The South Yorkshire police told the then Police Complaints Authority (PCA) that the force “did not feel disciplinary action was appropriate'' in respect of any of the complaints. The PCA mostly accepted that but recommended that disciplinary proceedings be commenced against Duckenfield and the deputy match commander, Supt Bernard Murray, for neglect of duty, But the IPOC report records starkly: “South Yorkshire police did not so.” Duckenfield then took early retirement on medical grounds. The PCA decided that it would be “unjust and inappropriate” to pursue the charge against Murray, a course of action that meant no officer ever faced disciplinary proceedings.[3]

Two senior West Midlands investigating officers, assistant chief constable Mervyn Jones and DCS Michael Foster, were named for gross misconduct cases, for allegations that they had “failed to investigate South Yorkshire police effectively'' and had been “biased against supporters in favour of South Yorkshire police”; this was in relation to the aggressive questioning of traumatised teenagers in order to determine the incidence of drunkenness amongst supporters although survivors have been exasperated against the limitations of these parts of the IOPC findings.[4]

To return to the timeline of the Hillsborough saga outlined earlier, it is impossible to overstate the importance of the role of the Hillsborough Independent Panel in breaking the judicial and investigative logjam. The Panel was a group of agreed experts appointed by the government, after the initiative of the afore mentioned then Labour minister Andy Burnham and his ministerial colleague Maria Eagle, who called for all documents relating to the disaster to be disclosed. The panel’s report in September 2012, principally researched and written by Prof Phil Scratton – surely one of the great truthtellers of our time – ignited the case for justice, documented forensically the depth of Wright’s efforts to palm responsibility onto the Liverpool supporters and brought to light medical evidence that contradicted the findings of the 1991 inquest. [5]

Within three months the High Court had quashed the 1991 findings and, in the wake of the HIP report Prime Minister David Cameron was on the floor of the House of Commons apologising on behalf of the nation to the bereaved of Hillsborough just as two years earlier he had issued an apology to the bereaved of Bloody Sunday in the wake of the publication of the Savile Report which had totally exonerated the victims of that day’s massacre of any culpability and opened up the possibility of criminal charges against the soldiers and officers-in-command of the First Parachute Regiment who so dishonoured their reputation that day.

But the wheels of justice trundled oh so slowly and steadily. After the longest jury case in history, the second inquest held in Warrington supported by the IOPC’s far reaching investigation Operation Resolve and held in Warrington between 2014 and 2016, the jury on 26 April 2016 returned their verdict that the 97 were unlawfully killed due to gross negligence by David Duckenfield. The jury further determined that no behaviour of Liverpool supporters contributed to the disaster.[6]

So total vindication of the case that the Hillsborough Families had pursued for the best part of three decades. But would they get their day in the criminal courts? Who would stand in the dock to account for what can best be described as corporate manslaughter by South Yorkshire Police at Hillsborough on 15th April 1989? Sadly not. The IOPC has concluded its 14-year investigation, with the 12 men named for gross misconduct case, a total of 110 complaints upheld or cases to answer against former police officers – none of which will ever be heard.

Post-Savile criminal investigations did result in the arraignment of Soldier F (identified in the tribunal proceedings as the killer of five of the Bloody Sunday dead) for the murders of two and the wounding of five civilians fifty year after the events but his trial collapsed in October 2025 due to the unsatisfactory nature of the evidence against him; this despite the scathing condemnation of the trial judge of the defendant’s conduct on that day. But the figure who should have stood in any dock was Colonel Derek Wilord, commander of the First Parachute Regiment that day and who, the Savile Inquiry found, had expressly disobeyed orders from superior officers not to enter the Bogside thereby setting in train the events of that terrible and most consequential day.

Yes, in the words of Steve Kelly, whose brother Mike, 38, died at Hillsborough:

No one should be beaten by the passage of time. We should have truth, justice, and accountability, at least within a person’s lifetime.[7]

Stripping of any honours bestowed on any of the guilty men identified by the IOPC and/or pensions would appear to be the only available tools of justice however remote the prospects of such outcomes.

The legacy of the Hillsborough families fight for truth and accountability is the Hillsborough Law introduced by the Labour government in September which establishes a duty of candour for police and public officials. The years and decades have passed by with no reckoning for those in state and corporate authority responsible for the egregious injustices uncovered in the Post Office Horizon IT and Infected Blood scandals to name just two of the British state’s guilty secrets. Is it too much to expect public accountability and a moment of reckoning for the malfeasances being uncovered by the Grenfell Tower Fire Inquiry? But the true victor of the Hillsborough and the Bloody Sunday campaigns is the truth itself.

References

[1] David Conn & Raphael Boyd ‘A bitter injustice: no officers will face discipline over Hillsborough. The Guardian. 3 December 2025 p.1

[2] Ibid, p.9

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid

[5] Ibid

[6] Ibid

[7] Ibid, p.1

⏩Barry Gilheany is a freelance writer, qualified counsellor and aspirant artist resident in Colchester where he took his PhD at the University of Essex. He is also a lifelong Leeds United supporter.

Justice Delayed And Denied But Delivered Eternally For The 97 🪶 The Closure Of The Final Chapter Of Hillsborough

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of One Thousand Nine Eight Hundred And Twelve

 

A Morning Thought @ 2993

People And Nature ☭ The Second Western Military District court in Moscow last week sentenced Yulia Lemeshchenko to 19 years’ imprisonment for high treason, sabotage, and preparing and training for an act of terrorism.


Yulia, 42, is a Russian citizen, born in Staryi Oskol, in Belgorod region. She lived in Voronezh in southern Russia, until 2014. Then she moved to Kharkiv, Ukraine, with her son and her husband, who had found work there. Later on the couple separated.

Yulia Lemeshchenko. Photo from the Memorial web site

Yulia took up powerlifting and in 2021 was named Ukrainian women’s champion.

In 2024 Yulia did military training in Kyiv – firearms, explosives and flying drones – and returned to Russia, via a third country. She sabotaged power transmission infrastructure near St Petersburg, and in Voronezh conducted surveillance on Aleksei Lobodoi, an air force commander responsible for bombing Kharkiv.

Yulia was arrested in January this year. She did not deny the facts outlined in the prosecution case, but told the court that “from a moral standpoint” she considered herself not guilty. This is a translation of her final statement to the court, published by Mediazona.

☀☀☀☀☀

As you see, I don’t have any sheets of paper and I haven’t especially prepared, but I think I will improvise. I will now probably say a few things that were already said during this hearing, but let this be a sort of summing-up, in a monologue.

So I already spoke here about the fact that, in any war, two sides clash, and each side insists that it is right and that its cause is just. I took one of these sides. I am not a citizen of the country for which I decided to fight, but, all the same, for me, Ukraine is home. I love that country. And I love Kharkiv, with all my heart.

There is a district in Kharkiv called Severnaya Saltovka. About 500,000 people lived there. Half a million. A few people I knew lived there. My hairdresser lived there. After the Russian shelling and bombing, not a single house in that district was left undamaged. Not a single one. And I am not just talking about a few broken windows. I am talking about whole blocks of flats in ruins.

Right next to the block where I lived, there were explosions. In my block, on the ground floor, my neighbour Anya lived with her four-year-old son Nikita. A shell exploded right under their window. Their apartment was completely destroyed. What has happened to Anya and her son I don’t know. I don’t know whether they are still alive.

Friends of mine have died in this war, one relative – my second cousin – and colleagues of mine. War is monstrous. I could not stand aside. When war comes, people who are affected can either try somehow to fight, or they can flee. People flee – I don’t know – maybe because they are cowardly or weak. I don’t consider myself to be a cowardly or weak person. So I decided to fight back – to fight against Russian military aggression.

It is possible that, by saying these things, I am getting myself still deeper into trouble. But my honour, and my conscience, are important to me. I did what I believed to be necessary. I did what I could. To regret, to repent – who knows, maybe I will do that on my deathbed. But for now, what will be, will be. I have nothing further to say.

☀☀☀☀☀

When the court hearing began, Mediazona reported that the judge, Vadim Krasnov, read out evidence that Yulia gave after being arrested in January. After the all-out Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Yulia at first moved to Germany. In 2023 she returned to Ukraine and made contact with the “Free Russia” legion, but did not join.

In 2024, when she did her military training, the instructors – who did not answer questions about which part of the armed forces they served in – said that, by way of payment for her work, she could receive Ukrainian citizenship.

The judge asked if she had done so, to which she replied, with a smile, “not yet”.

During the hearing, judge Krasnov asked Yulia why she had chosen such a radical method of struggle, rather than, for example, providing medical help to the wounded.

“I can only answer that question with another, rhetorical question”, she replied. “Why did Russia decide to use violent methods to destroy Ukrainian cities? A war had started. Do you understand?”

The judge responded that, by 2022, the war had already been underway for eight years. Yes, but it had become frozen, Lemeshchenko said. After the invasion, she wanted to help Ukraine however she could, and was invited to become a saboteur.

“How far were you prepared to go?” asked the judge. “I did not want to do anything that would take human lives”, Lemeshchenko replied. “They accepted that point. On that we had an agreement.”

The judge said that the sabotage Lemeshchenko carried out near St Petersburg left hospitals without electric light. She replied that the aim had been to paralyse a drone factory, that she was sincerely sorry if anyone in Petersburg had suffered. And that she and her son had many times sat in their apartment, without light, when Kharkiv was being bombed.

Lemeshchenko also told the court that, during interrogation, agents of the federal security service (FSB) had threatened to murder her, and pushed her head against a wall. She had tried to tell them the truth. She said that she did not retract her evidence – and nor would she complain about her treatment, as she did not believe that those responsible would be punished.

🔴 Here is Yulia’s statement in court, recorded with English interpretation. Yulia is recognised as a political prisoner by Memorial, and her case was reported by the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group.

🔴 The last word in court by Anton Khozhaev, a trainee officer accused of desertion to the Ukrainian side, and more on Russian anti-war protesters

🔴 Voices Against Putin’s War, just published by Resistance Books, includes 12 statements by anti-war protesters and associated material. The livestream of a launch event is here. 27 November 2025.

☭ People & Nature is now on mastodon, as well as twitter, whatsapp and telegram. Please follow! Or email peoplenature@protonmail.com, and we’ll add you to our circulation list (2-4 messages per month)

‘I Decided To Fight Back 🪶 Ukraine Is My Home ’ 🪶 Yulia Lemeshchenko’s Final Word In Court

UK Human Rights Blog ★Written by Rosalind English. Recommended by Christy Walsh.

The Department of Education for Northern Ireland (in the matter of an application by JR87 and another for judicial review (Appellant) [2025] UKSC 40

This interesting decision shows the intersection between the right to education and the right to freedom of religion under the ECHR. These are fast evolving rights, particularly Article 9, whose “freedom” stipulation is becoming more important than the “religion” right. Article 9 is more and more often taken to cover the right not to cleave to any religion at all.

In this case the arguments were focussed on the right to education under Article 2 Protocol 1 of the Convention, taken together with Article 9. The main issue before the Supreme Court can be briefly stated. Did religious education and collective worship provided in a school in Northern Ireland breach the rights of a child, and the child’s parents, under Article 2 of the First Protocol (“A2P1”) to the European Convention on Human Rights (“ECHR”) read with Article 9 ECHR?

What is particularly interesting and unusual about this judgment is that it emerges from Northern Ireland with its own history of sectarianism and religious division.

Continue @ UKHRB.

Faith, Freedom, and Fairness 🪶 Supreme Court Rules Christian-Only Religious Education In Northern Ireland Schools Unlawful

Dr John Coulter ✍ It may still be a few days until the Stormont Christmas recess as well as the traditional school holidays, but there’s no doubt all the political parties have been in election mode since the start of the academic year in September.

Put bluntly, although it is around 18 months until the next Assembly showdown in May 2027, it is clear from any of the local weekly newspapers in Northern Ireland as well as social media, that the starting gun for that election has already been fired.

Within the pro-Union community, all eyes will be fixed on the DUP to see if it can hold its position as the lead Unionist party, or will 2027 become the DUP’s 2003 - the year the Ulster Unionists lost their position as top dog in Unionism to the DUP.

The UUP’s disastrous showing in 2003’s Assembly poll was followed up two years later with another drubbing in the Westminster elections, firmly cementing the DUP’s pole position in Unionism and paving the way for the following year’s St Andrews Agreement and the return of a DUP/Sinn Fein-led power-sharing Executive at Stormont in 2007.

The 2007 era under Rev Ian Paisley as First Minister with Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness as deputy First Minister - known as the Chuckle Brothers - is widely viewed as one of the most stable periods of devolution in the history of the current Assembly since it was first elected in 1998.

In 2027, the DUP will be fighting on two fronts - preventing progressive pro-Union voters going back to the Ulster Unionists, whilst at the same time, stopping more hardline pro-Union voters defecting to the TUV.

The UUP will have its own challenges, namely persuading moderate pro-Union voters who defected to Alliance to return to the UUP fold.

In this battle for votes, all pro-Union parties will have two major lobbies to canvas. Firstly, there is the seemingly large numbers of ‘stay at home’ voters who have lost faith in the ballot box.

Gone are the days when Unionist elected representatives could boast of 30,000-vote majorities. How many Assembly seats have been lost by the pro-Union community because of a lack of voter turnout and bitter rivalry between the parties resulting in pro-Union voters not transferring to other pro-Union parties?

Gone, too, for the DUP are the slogans of the Paisleyite era, such as the 1985 local government poll when the battle cry was ‘Smash Sinn Fein’ with Rev Ian Paisley pictured brandishing a sledgehammer.

The problem for the DUP is ironically the long-term fallout from that St Andrews Agreement of almost two decades ago. Part of the deal was to change how the First and deputy First Ministers were selected.

Prior to 2006, the posts were decided by the largest designations - Unionism, nationalism, or Other. From the 1998 Assembly, these positions were held by David Trimble of the UUP and the SDLP’s Seamus Mallon.

However, under St Andrews, the DUP got this selection process changed to the largest party rather than designation. Perhaps the DUP - then the largest party in the Assembly in 2006 - assumed it would always remain the top dog at Stormont.

But the numbers game is no longer adding up for the DUP and St Andrews, whilst it hugely benefitted the DUP in 2006, is now a political millstone around the party’s neck as Sinn Fein is now the largest party in the Stormont Chamber and holds the post of First Minister.

So for Unionism to once again hold the First Minister’s position in 2027, two elements would have to come into play. Firstly, there would have to be massive tactical voting for the DUP within the pro-Union community, especially from the UUP and TUV, both of which are nudging up gradually in the opinion polls.

Secondly, under reform of the Assembly, the St Andrews rule would have to be scrapped and a return to the 1998 largest designation era. The worst case scenario for the pro-Union community is that the Unionist vote becomes so evenly split between DUP, TUV, UUP and Independent Unionists that Lagan Valley Syndrome becomes the order of the day.

In the last Westminster General Election, the traditionally safe Unionist seat of Lagan Valley fell to Alliance because of a three-way split in the pro-Union vote.

The DUP also faces a problem of political direction with rumours abounding of ideological splits within the party, with some wanting a more moderate approach, while others want a traditional fundamentalist old-style Paisleyite approach.

The elephant in the room for the DUP continues to be the TUV. Whilst the latter has only one MLA, the TUV has been steadily increasing in opinion polls and if it can present itself as much more transfer friendly, could easily tally its Assembly members to double figures.

Ironically, the same dilemma faces the UUP. Does it continue along the existing ultra moderate Nesbitt route of being a liberal Unionist party capable of attracting pro-Union voters back from Alliance, or does it adopt a more Right-wing approach capable of attracting transfers from the DUP.

Just as many pro-Union voters opted for Alliance as a protest against the Unionist parties, especially over Brexit, could disillusioned DUP voters opt for the UUP which could see Ulster Unionism back into double figures in terms of MLAs.

Put bluntly, there will have to be some form of Unionist co-operation if the pro-Union parties want to see more folk, especially from the loyalist communities, re-engage with the ballot box on polling day.

Likewise, the recent Supreme Court ruling on religious education in schools has acted as a massive mobilisation boost for the Christian church lobby in Northern Ireland, spanning the religious divide. But who will the church vote drift too?

Could we see evangelicals and fundamentalists save the DUP electorally in the same way that the fundamentalist Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster, founded by Paisley senior in 1951, was once the cornerstone of the DUP. Or could that church vote abandon the DUP in flocks and plump for the TUV.

Whilst there has been much debate within the pro-Union community about the need to focus on middle of the road voters, if the current opinion polls become election results in 2027, has the Alliance bubble finally burst?

Just as the Liberal Democrats have found to their cost at Westminster when they have climbed into bed politically with either of the supposed Big Two in the House of Commons, could Alliance come to deeply regret the day it has sided with the SDLP and Sinn Fein in voting strategies.
 
Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter
John is a Director for Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM. 

Could The DUP Be Facing Its 2003 in 2027?

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