Price arrest shatters myth that six county policing is ‘non political’
The recently staged political arrest of 32 County Sovereignty Movement National Secretary Marian Price underscores the fact that policing in the Six Counties will always be political. We have long stated that where sovereignty is disputed policing will always take a side in that dispute. The myth that policing in the Six Counties could be detached from the constitutional question by employing the charade of ‘Civic Policing’ has been shattered yet again.
The British Government has repeatedly used policing to curry favour with whichever political mood prevails. On the one hand we had the establishment of the benign District Policing Partnerships as a sop to the constituency of establishment nationalists. And now that we have unionists grappling with the issue of devolving minimalist Policing and Justice ‘powers’ to Stormont we witness the targeting of high profile republican activists for arrest by the RUC/paramilitary police. Coupled with this is the appearance before Crown Courts of Irish Republicans on the most spurious of grounds.
All of this points to where the British Government desires that political policing should lead. We urge all republicans to be vigilant in the times ahead as British efforts to secure its illegal sovereign claim over part of Ireland intensify.
