William Matchett: The real political purpose behind all those republican claims of collusion

As two detectives underwent surgery for severed limbs and shattered bones, those responsible shot dead constable Tom Cush, “a reliable man everyone liked.” No-one was made amenable for either crime. Protecting life and nicking murderers in Northern Ireland’s darkest days (1969-98) was very difficult.

Tit-for-tat chaos gripped a divided society. Where I lived, in 1972 the town saw its first murder for 40 years. Within a few awful hours, three innocent civilians lay dead. Ex-cop Ralf Henry was the loyalist gunman in the reprisal incident.

Loyalist and republican terrorist groups were deeply sectarian. To excuse murder, crude hate slurs. Whilst most were obvious, the Provisional IRA conceived an ethnic insult pretending not to be - collusion.

Serialised murder was a tactic in a political strategy to unify Ireland. The thinking – the greater the sectarian strife the better because more headstones mean more political leverage, so long as we control the headlines. Division was the aim. Division is votes. A headline grabber to service the political goal, collusion got aired every time a Catholic was killed by loyalists. Primarily, to portray the security forces as biased and sectarian, particularly PIRA’s nemesis, Special Branch (intelligence), for whom it was paranoid.

To promote PIRA as the sole saviour of Catholics, collusion alleged the predominantly Protestant Royal Ulster Constabulary (the imbalance was largely due to PIRA intimidating Catholics from joining) ignored loyalist killers. The deceit hid the reactionary nature of loyalist murders by men like Henry who were regularly jailed, and disappeared PIRA being the main problem. That is, PIRA was the aggressor and the best way to protect Catholics was for it to stop murdering Protestants. Targeting Protestant families, and often the same family, was acutest in Fermanagh. In the lakeland county PIRA cross-border gangs committed 93% of killings, including a campaign of ethnic cleansing under Kevin McKenna, PIRA’s “Slobodan Milosevic”. Courageous nationalist politicians who spotlighted the true Provos were tarred collusive “Brits”.

Collusion grossly libelling cops was the start of smearing the Protestant population (British) complicit in killing Catholics (Irish). Conspiracy theory crap stained any police activity, usually intelligence, before, during or after the loyalist murder of a Catholic. A unionist state brutalising Catholics was endlessly repeated with those who should have more sense intoning in, of which the climax is “PIRA had no alternative to killing”. No alternative is no remorse, no truth, no admitting Tom’s killing was a crime. The alibi for mass murder, “no alternative” is the crowning headline.

Violent bigots decreed that helping police to prevent murder was wrong. To see Henry flee the scene and tell cops was to risk execution. Henry was to be feted, not reported. Republicanism, which outkilled loyalists by 2:1, was far worse.

In Spain’s peace deal, ETA (PIRA’s equivalent) and its political arm were declared unfit for a pluralist constitution. Madrid was intolerant of a party excusing murder and glorifying murderers. In the Balkans, ethnic cleansers were prosecuted. In contrast, a sectarian aggressor was vanished and the security forces, chiefly the RUC, scapegoated by a feeble British government keen to please the Provos.

Replacing reality with illusion churned out collusion headlines with a mathematical certainty that saw Sinn Fein triumph at the ballot box in 2022 whereupon the first minister-elect announced, “no alternative”. That was teed up by a headline a few years earlier, “‘IRA right to fight’ says Gerry Adams at Kevin McKenna funeral”.

Shouted as Henry got sentenced to life was “keep up the fight”. The insult did not find a home in unionism. On that, nationalism’s largest party is alone.

A multi-million-pound legacy setup examining the past concocted vague collusion definitions, as if it could mean anything else for most people except its traditional “Brits murdered Irish” zero-sum. We go back centuries to trace a word to ugly roots and rightly ban it, yet not for an ethnic insult from yesterday!

The collusion claim is classic negative campaigning, organised mudslinging in an election race where something outrageous, whether true or false, is constantly raised by the media. The victim must explain it or deny it. Either way, they are always talking about it. Genuine issues they want to raise get buried and lost. Here, Richard Nixon in 1968 blaming his political opponent for all of America’s woes is rated a “masterpiece of distortion”. The question is, will the new Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill, despite other concerns, put an end to rubbing the nose of the unionist community in a dirty lie? Or in legacy, is there also “no alternative?”

Thinking Frank and David dead - miraculously both survived and went on to have stellar police careers, particularly Frank - caused as much festivity in loyalist bars and Henry’s cell in the Maze prison as republican pubs. Collusion suppresses that reality.

William Matchett is the author of Secret Victory: The Intelligence War that Beat the IRA.