Exploiting the Vacuum
Last week at the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee Gregory Campbell questioned Sir Hugh Orde's assertion that dissidents may be exploiting the vacuum. The Chief Constable responded by insisting he had intelligence to back up his remarks.
Today the asserted that the one possible reason for the increase in Continuity IRA and Real IRA activity "may be a perception that the absence of progress on the devolution of justice and policing has created a political vacuum, or may have caused disaffection among republican supporters, which the dissidents think they may be able to exploit".
The argument has prompted another trenchant response from the DUP, in the shape of a statement from Willie McCrea, who says he wants "to nail the falsehood being peddled by some that dissident republican criminality is connected to the devolution of policing and justice. I cannot agree with anyone who suggests that dissident Republicans are rioting in the streets, shooting at the police and planting bombs because they want to see the immediate devolution of policing and justice powers to the Stormont Assembly. Such a suggestion is absurd and those who peddle such a line simply make themselves look foolish."
The IMC also tried to advance another argument about devolving justice by suggesting that it would allow for more joined-up government, by enabling, for example, maximum effort to be made to ensure criminals don't defraud industrial or agricultural subsidies or welfare benefits.
Fair enough, although given how magnificently unjoined-up our local departments generally are, one wonders whether devolution would make that much difference.
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