We have been told many times before the crooks and mass murderers of the IRA and their political apologists that the violence is all over, let’s be nice boys etc, that Perry’s scepticism is understanderble. Spare the insults, makes you sound chippy and insecure.

I would imagine that the politicos in Dublin are terrified at the prospect of an Irish reunification.

The good news is that there is post-1998 a semblance of normality in Northern Ireland, especially for the middle classes whose homes have rocketed in value. However, there is much less good news for those at the bottom of the pile in Northern Ireland……the very people New Labour claims to champion. Working class areas of Northern Ireland remain the fiefdoms of terror, Republican and Loyalist. In these areas, the gunmen, kneecappers and drug barons rule unchecked and the rule of omerta is sacrosanct. Unemployment remains very high partly because of the collapse of traditional industries but also because it is very hard to set up legitimate businesses in a province where organised crime run or franchised by terrorists has been allowed to grow unchecked. The authorities usually look the other way.

A weird paradox is that the worse this state of affairs gets, the harder it is to envisage Irish reunification. Northern Ireland is one of the poorest parts of the UK and receives vast subsidies from London. These are indispensable to keeping relative peace, not least by damping down unemployment. It is hard to imagine Dublin being able to come up with the same level of funding. No wonder a large number of Catholics in Northern Ireland prefer the status quo. That does not alter the fact that for many of them, and for many working class Protestants, life remains grim.

You really are a pompous and ill-informed idiot. I rather fancy that if I met you in real life (heaven forbid) you would come off as some kind of spoiled upper-class twit with hugely inflated ideas of your own importance and intellectual capacity, spouting pronouncements like “I am a libertawian” or “I am an anarcho-minimalist” to all and sundry.

No dear Perry, the real reason that the IRA are laying down their arms is because they *can*. They have effectively won all that they can win for now, and the most profitable strategic route for them lies in politics. And clearly the world is now the oyster. While they are being applauded for their declaration, poor old Unionists are still running round each other’s estates clad in their favourite Rangers jerseys, shooting each other dead. The novelty of this will begin to wear off soon, no doubt. It is a delicious irony that the greatest danger posed to the life of “Mad Dog” Adair is from “Mad Dog” Unionists. Adams and McGuinness have worked incredibly hard behind the scenes to convince some of the most ruthless Republican psychopaths and thugs that this is the way forward. For that minor miracle, at least, they deserve credit.

“Even if you strip out the whole paramilitary issue, Sinn Fein is still a quasi-Marxist party — it is extreme left in the things it says about economic policy, and that kind of thing frightens the middle class,” said Dan O’Brien, senior editor at the Economist Intelligence Unit.

“The party’s economic vision for Ireland is Cuba without the palm trees,” he added.

Does anyone, apart from Our Little Tone, really believe that the IRA is going to disarm in any way? Worth noting that the phrase they usually employ, “putting weapons beyond immediate use” is not disarming, just burying them in case they are needed again in the future.

The Provisionals have gone as far as they can… and their war is not over

It’s a big step down from well organised guerrilla force to well organised mob. The first means you have the tacit and low level support of the community you operate in. The latter means you have lost it.

It’s a huge step forward for peace in NI. So what if the IRA have no regrets about what they did in the past? I’m not happy because this news shows what nice people they’ve all suddenly become, but because it shows they lost, in the end. Armed resistance with or without terror tactics has failed them.

The IRA have made their announcement because they think that they are more likely to get what they want as a result. The correct response is to, publically, at least, take them at their word and do not give them a single excuse for not doing as promised or to blame the British government or unionists if they don’t keep their word. Nor should they be given any opportunity to take the moral high ground in the view of the rest of the world (in many European countries, people honestly believe the IRA’s line that the British army is an occupying force against the wishes of the population of Northern Ireland), or the cathloic population. If the army watchtowers were left in place, the IRA could score a huge propoganda victory by saying “see, we promised to use purely peaceful methods yet the British government is still intent on military occupation” So the smart thing to do is to take away the visible signs of army presence with as much haste as possible (watchtowers can quickly and easily be rebuilt should the situation require) and to turn the spotlight back on the IRA, especially the punishment beatings and other criminal activities in which the IRA has still engaged during the ‘ceasefire’. The result will be that either the IRA will truly give up violence or they will be exposed to the world for what they have always been.

In this respect at least, Blair is not a credulous fool – he is acting intelligently (and it’s not very often I have cause to praise Blair).

Incidentally Perry, I find your response to Phil’s admittedly provocative post, rather intemperate and disproportionate. Was personal abuse really necessary?

Sorry but I think I’d rather trust Al Queda, at least we KNOW what their true intentions are.