IRA 'transition' is over, says Blair
The period of the IRA’s transition from terror to democracy is over, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said today.
He believed that the leadership of Sinn Fein accepted this, Mr Blair told the Irish Times newspaper in an interview.
But there was no point in inching forward any more – there should now be a big step forward in the peace process, he said.
Mr Blair stopped short of making a formal demand for IRA disbandment, but said; “I think everybody knows what we are saying.”
He confirmed that an unprecedented crackdown on loyalist paramilitaries in Northern Ireland was under way.
“These people have to realise we are going to come down on them with every single bit of force and authority we possibly can,” he said.
Mr Blair rejected any possibility of an alternative to the Good Friday Agreement, saying: “If there is an impasse as a result of confusion over paramilitary and political ends, there is no way I can cook up some solution with the Irish Government and slam it down. It is not going to work.”
The Agreement’s survival depended upon the consent of majorities of both communities in Northern Ireland, and repeated his 1998 promise that there will no “imposed” solution.
He rejected suggestions that he was preparing for another exercise in peace process “choreography“, and called for “a big step forward, where the British Government fulfils its mandate, the paramilitaries realise they can no longer use force to pursue political ends, and politics do truly become normal, at least in the sense that there is no mixing of paramilitary activity and politics“.
Reports of the recent “crucifixion” of Harry McCartan had made him “physically sick“, Mr Blair said.
He went on: “The other thing I would say – and you can see this from that appalling attack over the weekend which made me physically sick – these people have to realise we are going to come down on them with every single bit of force and authority we possibly can.”
On the apparent absence of corresponding British Government demands for loyalist paramilitary groups to disband, Mr Blair said: “Let me make it clear that the activities of the loyalist paramilitaries are not just totally and completely contrary to law, but contrary to any decent sense of humanity.”
He continued: “The only difference is that the loyalist paramilitaries are not connected to political parties and government, that is why there is a different situation there. But in terms of the paramilitary activity, of course it has got to cease and cease entirely.”
