Britain should not fear ‘an honest approach’ to past sins, says historian

• Published date: 15 April 2024
• Publication title: Irish Times (Dublin, Ireland)

Throughout, the same mistakes are made again and again by states responding to terrorists, the Queen’s University Belfast historian argues in his latest book, Does Counter-Terrorism Work

Often, states make matters worse, be it the scale of the Israeli attacks on Gaza after the October 7th massacres, or the British “dirty war” against republicans and nationalists in Northern Ireland.

“It’s short-termism. People think about what’s happening now, rather than about thinking long pasts and long futures. We should think about those long pasts and long futures,” argues the academic.

Bar the “pernicious legacy” of the Taliban’s success in Afghanistan, the retaliation by states – such as the post-9/11 war on terror – has changed history more than terrorism ever did, he says.

Whether in Gaza or Northern Ireland, it is “tempting always to have goodies and baddies”, English says, which though “comforting” denies “the much messier reality”.

Some British actions during The Troubles, says English, were “not only deeply wrong in themselves, but deeply degrading for the reputation of the United Kingdom, not just in Northern Ireland, but more broadly”.

Though he cites examples where British security figures “colluded” with loyalist paramilitaries, who were sometimes Ulster Defence Regiment soldiers, English does not accept that every British response was equally motivated.

“I don’t think that’s true. I think there was much done in counterterrorism that was about saving lives and that it was done with the intention of preventing human suffering.”

Looking at the Kenova investigation into the IRA’s Stakeknife informer, commonly known as Freddie Scappaticci, English says it is clear that the double agent did “more harm than good.

“There has to be an honesty about how many lives were saved and whether the lesser evil was chosen, or the greater evil,” he says, though intelligence gathering “saved a lot of lives.

“If you’re saving more lives than you’re losing, then you can justify some difficult choices. My point, though, is that we need to assess outcomes honestly.”

The compromises made by the IRA in the 1990s before and after the Belfast Agreement were “made more likely because their violence was contained”, denying them victory.

“Part of the business of the peace process was the containment of paramilitary violence, so that the pragmatic leadership in the IRA decided to opt for peace process,” he says.

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