‘Martin McGuinness stripped all legacy from peace deal day before DUP signed’

Many victims and unionists had already expressed concerns about the deal it was based on - the 2014 Stormont House Agreement (SHA).

There were serious concerns that the proposed Historical Investigations Unit could make findings of guilt without due process, and that the deal would allow the guilty to rewrite their past and cast themselves as victims.

However, after ten weeks of intensive negotiations with the DUP and government, any proposed reforms were swept aside by Sinn Fein - only 24 hours before The Fresh Start deal was signed.

The revelations were made by Lord Jonathan Caine, former Special Advisor to Secretary of States from 1991-95 and 2010-19, at the NI Affairs Committee inquiry on legacy this week. 

Asked why it had been so difficult to take the SHA forward, he singled out Martin McGuinness and the ‘disproportionate’ pursuit of veterans. Difficulties arose when trying to convert the SHA into detailed legislation, he said.

“We then had delays around national security vetoes which meant by the time of the Fresh Start Agreement in 2015, Sinn Fein vetoed any reference to legacy in that agreement,” he said. “Martin McGuinness, on the penultimate day, vetoed any references to legacy issues at all. And we just lost time.”

While the SHA had been intended “to introduce more proportionality and balance into the debate” it was subsequently seen by Tories, especially, as “an instrument for going after soldiers” he said.

As a result, he expressed “sympathy” for alternative government plans on legacy unveiled in March.

Asked if Mr McGuinness’ veto had represented bad faith from Sinn Fein in reaching a consensus on legacy, a party spokesman responded: “The Stormont House Agreement had been negotiated and agreed by the two governments and the local political parties in December 2014. Attempts by the British government to renegotiate and renege on the agreement less than a year after it committed to Stormont House was yet another example of British bad faith.” 

Yesterday morning the News Letter asked the DUP what legacy reforms had been secured during ten weeks of talks and if the Sinn Fein veto had made the party look weak, the DUP signing the deal anyway. The party offered no response.

Ken Funston of victims group SEFF noted that the Fresh Start foreward said it provided “a credible roadmap for the implementation of many aspects of the Stormont House Agreement”.

“The SHA legacy proposals are unacceptable to the largest constituency of victims/survivors - that’s reality,” he added. “Any further legacy negotiations in Fresh Start talks could have diluted the impact of SHA, so Martin McGuinness closed down that potential. But legacy structures cannot be implemented without the largest constituency of victims, otherwise who is the process for?”

Dr Cillian McGrattan, Lecturer in Politics at Ulster University said the ‘uncompromising’ vision of dealing with the past in the SHA “fed Sinn Fein’s agenda of hollowing out unionist collective memory and enabling a wholesale rewriting of the historical record. When this prospect is challenged, Sinn Fein tend to resort to hyperbolic posturing or simply withdrawal of cooperation.”

But Daniel Holder, of the Committee for the Administration of Justice, - which supported the SHA - echoed Sinn Fein’s view. He said: “It is unsurprising that there was opposition to reopening the already negotiated Stormont House Agreement at the time of the Fresh Start Agreement, not least from the two governments, who had already completed an implementation treaty on the [SHA’s] Independent Commission on Information Retrieval (ICIR) by that time.”

DUP MP Sir Jeffrey Donaldson sent a statement to the News Letter yesterday evening.

He said: “Issues that we were pursuing on legacy at that time and continue to pursue included a payments scheme for innocent victims and the definition of victim pertaining to such schemes. Far from being weak negotiators, we have persisted on these matters and have since delivered substantially on both of these objectives with a payments scheme now in law and awaiting funding and terrorist perpetrators excluded from the scheme. We have also held our ground on the national security issues that so exercised the former Deputy First Minister and thus the Sinn Fein veto has been completely ineffective in getting this changed. Unionism held its nerve on these matters, we persevered and we won.

“On HIU etc we have continued to engage with victims groups and others to find a solution that works for everyone. We expect the Government to publish their revised plans in the next few months. It remains the view of the DUP that any legacy process must be victim lead and victim centred.”

::‘DUP secured key legacy wins on issues McGuinness vetoed in deal’

:: Statesmen propose bypassing Stormont House Agreement on legacy

:: Ahern: Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness was in IRA until 2005

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