Peter Robinson: SDLP embraced IRA at height of its terror campaign, so it is in no place to condemn talks with loyalists

It is not a black or white issue, and, for many, it will ultimately hang on whether it is conceivable that such exchanges may lead to an end of violence and criminality or, at least, the avoidance of it breaking out or developing.

Yet, no matter what any of us believe is the principled position the one party that cannot lecture those who participate in such activity is the SDLP.

Yet remarkably it was their Member of Parliament for South Belfast who excoriated the secretary of state for participating in a Zoom call with representatives of the Loyalist Community Council.

Setting aside the smoke and mirrors of what groups the individuals were representing and accepting the narrative that all but the extremely naïve choose to accept, is anyone really surprised, or does anyone actually believe that this is anything other than standard NIO practice.

So why the feigned shock and outrage?

“It beggars belief”, the SDLP MP said, that the NIO were in talks with loyalist paramilitary representatives. Does Claire Hanna not know her party’ history?

She is a senior representative of a party that embraced the IRA and gentrified the republican movement.

A party that took the Provos by the hand and joined them in a pan-nationalist front while they were at the apex of their murder campaign and criminal enterprise.

Does she need to stoke sectarian fires to repay the baser elements who supported her electorally when Sinn Fein stood aside in the last election and ushered her into Westminster?

Her position is untenable.

What a preposterous argument.

What rational individual could contend that it was right to speak to republican paramilitaries but wrong to speak to loyalist ones?

Yet it was the spectacle of Sinn Fein complaining about Brandon Lewis “engaging with armed criminal gangs” that really did take the biscuit.

What? Armed criminal gangs?

Wow! The very thought of a democratic politician talking to such people must have appalled Sinn Fein. Short memories indeed.

Apparently, Sinn Fein were perplexed and thought it incredible that the loyalist representatives were being briefed by the government on an international agreement.

For years, while the terrorist and criminal wing of the republican movement was armed to the teeth, Sinn Fein met the UK government and talked about matters covered by a host of international agreements, treaties and declarations. Republicans may not get irony, but they certainly have mastered hypocrisy.

As someone who was relentlessly and, at times, brutally criticised by many from loyalist organisations, I recognise they may not have a significant electoral mandate, but they are still part of our community.

We, every day, hear of the need to listen to and acknowledge minorities but it seldom seems to transfer to those from the loyalist community.

I know only too well the hurt felt by those who have been the victims of paramilitary activity and the sense of anger they experience when any paramilitary is feted by government.

If every democratic politician (including the SDLP) and government held to this position for all groups, this could have been accomplished, but it is only workable if all of those linked to paramilitary organisations are treated in the same way.

Moreover, if our goal is to live in a society committed to exclusively democratic and peaceful means of resolving differences, then it is not the Mothers Union and the Lions Clubs we need to persuade and encourage but those who are left or locked outside the process.

Before anybody starts jabbing a finger in my direction I freely and openly admit that I met regularly with those in, or close to, loyalist groups and sought to steer them towards a future that would bring an end to the attachment to paramilitary organisations.

For full disclosure I am still involved on the edges of such work through Cooperation Ireland. There will always be milksop politicians more ready to pass-by on the other side than grapple with these challenging problems.

There will also be those who, for political reasons, seek to associate those who take the risks involved in such dialogue with the actions of those they are trying to engage.

There is not enough space in this publication to list the catalogue of concessions delivered to republicans over the years in order to keep them sweet. They have been shown tolerance when any other group would have been vilified. They have escaped justice in circumstances where others would have been punished and they have been honoured and praised while others, who have been no more contemptable than they are, find themselves reviled.

Yes, Brandon Lewis was right to talk to them, but the NIO’s scales are still massively tilted towards placating republicans.

• Peter Robinson is a former DUP leader and First Minister of Northern Ireland

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