IRA Army council still in place and still wielding influence

“There is no place for an IRA army council or any other army council in 2018,” the DUP MP for East Belfast said.

The reality, however, is that there is a place for the IRA army council — and one that is not only in society, but close to the top of it.

Mr Robinson was speaking after the chief constable George Hamilton said that the structures of the Provisional IRA remain in place.

The position is unchanged since 2015, the PSNI believe.

The joint PSNI and MI5 report of that year could have led to the immediate withdrawal of all parties other than Sinn Fein. They could have all agreed that it was entirely unacceptable to have a party at the heart of power that has been so close to an IRA that still exists.

But that did not happen and there is little sign that there will ever be any stomach for isolating these sanctimonious hypocrites. Instead, two years after the 2015 report, it was Sinn Fein who brought the whole process down.

And that is where it will stay, until Sinn Fein blackmail is rewarded in the form of a standalone Irish language act (the party will accept an act that is nominally related to other cultural legislation but is in effect quite clearly a standalone act).

Such an act will be used on a wider scale in the sectarian way the language is used in places where Protestants are in a small minority: to make them feel uncomfortable, at great expense.

As ever, Sinn Fein is allowed to play by different rules.

London says nothing — nothing — in criticism of the party’s disgraceful conduct, while Dublin agitates on behalf of the republican demands.

The only palatable way out of this is a long period of direct rule, lasting years if need be, with cursory London-Dublin contact, but even a Tory government seems too timid for that.