Richard Boyd Barrett: Accuses British State of Collusion

To my mind, there is a direct line between the complicity and collusion of the British State and the British Empire with the genocide that we have witnessed in Gaza over the last two years, and the atrocities that were carried out by one of their agents, like Freddy Scafatici, committing murder and abductions and so on, while he is a British agent, through to Bloody Sunday, through to the Dublin Monaghan bombings and indeed right back, if you want to draw parallels to the role of the auxiliaries and the black and tans during the Irish Revolution and then the very same people being sent to Palestine to back the Zionist move to partition Palestine. And what is the common link? The British Empire being involved in atrocity. And I find it curious that the Irish government, I mean, you know, the Republican movement have questions to answer, for sure. But I just find it interesting that the government's entire focus in this debate seems to be to score political points against Sinn Féin, rather than to be concerned about the profound implications of the fact that the British State was running an agent like Scafatici, who was involved in killing people, abducting people, they protected him, Canova reveals that he, that their protection of him, led to far, far more deaths than any that they might have claimed he was saving by running an agent within the IRA. They still refuse to really own up to the truth of their involvement in all of this, or even to name Scafatici in the same way as the victims of the atrocity in Derry and Bloody Sunday are still fighting for justice, still haven't got the truth and accountability that they demanded from the British State, because the British State wants to guarantee impunity and to protect the people guilty of atrocities that their agents carry out. And critically, and this is the point I really want to make, critically in all of this regard, while you do mention Operation Denton, which is the sub-division of Canova, far less focus from the government on the fact that the Denton report has not been published and the families are absolutely furious about this because it was leaked in October, two months before it was due to be published. It was leaked. Now, who leaked it? And as a result of that, it has not been published still. So the families of the 34 victims of the Dublin Monaghan bombings, the single biggest atrocity, that we know the report indicates were carried out by loyalist power to militaries with the collusion of the British State, with the collusion of the British State, the report dealing with that atrocity, still not published and now is in limbo because it's subject to legal action because of the leak, because of the leak. That's why it's not been published when it was supposed to be published. So years of investment that the families put into that process cooperating with Denton now denied the truth and justice that they've been seeking for decades and the investment they put into operation Denton and no idea now, left in limbo as to whether they're ever going to get the truth and justice and accountability. But signs on it, they're not going to because isn't that the pattern that we see. The families of the Bloody Sunday victims, no real truth and accountability. Nobody ever really held accountable. The British government still won't hold, even admit, the true extent of their involvement with Scappaticci and other atrocities or similarly with the Dublin Monaghan bombing. And some very alarming things about this, which I'm just surprised the government doesn't highlight. The lawyers of the representatives of many of the Dublin Monaghan bombings indicated that MI5 broke into the Denton headquarters while they were conducting their review. Now that's incredible. So even after all of this, after all of the atrocities and the collusion and the complicity with this kind of dirty tricks stuff, we have the report leaked. Who leaked it? Now and then we have MI5 trying to break into the headquarters of Denton, the body set up to do this. I mean to me that is just shocking, right? No expressions of outrage or determination on the part of the Irish government we're going to get to the bottom of this. Who received the draft report of Denton? The PSNI and the Gardie. It seems unlikely, from what I understand, the families think it is unlikely that anybody in Denton leaked the report. So the only other two groups that saw the draft report were the Gardie and the PSNI. And it was leaked to the Belfast Telegraph two months before it was due to be published. And a podcast went out from the Telegraph as well about it. And as a result, the actual report has not been published. The families, who are really the people fighting for truth and justice, who are at the centre of all this, and the government says, what is this? The Taoiseach said that the it must be, you know, yeah sorry, the government has consistently called for a victim-centred approach to legacy issues. Well where's the victim-centred approach to this? They have no idea when they're going to actually see the report. And all the sort of energy of the government seems to be directed at scoring political points against Sinn Féin instead of at the British government, at the issue of the leaks, and about the lack of justice and truth and accountability for the victims of the single biggest atrocity, the Dublin Monaghan bombing. I just find it extraordinary. But you see, there is a pattern, isn't it? Because not only is the the crimes of the British state and the British Empire, there's never accountability, there's always impunity, just like there is for Israel. But we also see it here in the Irish state, don't we? Right? I mean, can the Irish state please explain to me, or are they concerned even about the fact that the investigation of the Dublin Monaghan bombing was shut down after 11 weeks? That all of the forensic material relating to Dublin bombing were sent north to be given to the PSNI when we now know it was the British were colluding with the loyalist paramilitaries that carried it out. But we outsourced responsibility for investigating this to the jurisdiction that we now know was responsible for colluding with the people who carried out the atrocity. And even in terms of Denton itself, and the families from, you know, seem to have a lot of faith in Denton, whether it's justified or not, I don't know. But even there, the investigation essentially is outsourced to another jurisdiction rather than the Irish state itself taking responsibility for actually getting to the truth of these things. And lastly, that to me leads to the Stardust issue today as well. Right? Because what is at the heart of the anger that the Stardust families are expressing today is that a promise to engage with them on the process was reneged upon. And that, there was a commitment to a second phase, to it not being a one-size-fits-all, to really recognising the trauma, the suffering, the state's responsibility in exacerbating that trauma and suffering the families are still going through, and the government managed to do it again. After all the years of fighting for truth and justice and so on, the Stardust families, the state insults them again with an announcement that reneges effectively on commitments that were made to the Stardust families. It's really, really shocking.