As threat levels rise, Northern Ireland faces a difficult time ahead

A generation has grown up since the momentous Good Friday Agreement, and some of them are once again in paramilitary groups

The raising of the terrorist threat level in Northern Ireland from substantial to severe by MI5 is a foreboding warning at a time of historic significance, with the impending 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement which ended 30 years of the Troubles.

Extensive celebrations are being planned to commemorate the signing of the deal, with Joe Biden expected to arrive in Belfast. The presence of the President will be a reminder of the key role the US played in bringing to an end the vicious internecine strife which led to the loss of 3,700 lives.

Bill Clinton, under whose administration the Belfast Agreement was brokered, will also be present along with Hillary Clinton.

The anniversary comes after another landmark moment – Rishi Sunak’s Brexit deal for Northern Ireland being formally signed off, and the prospect of trade problems – which came with the protocol – being resolved at last.

Biden’s appearance is also seen as a seal of approval for the Brexit breakthrough. The US administration has repeatedly stressed that maintaining the Good Friday Agreement is an inviolate term in many bilateral issues with the UK, not least a vital post-Brexit trade deal. Biden repeatedly mentions that his antecedents are Irish, and the Irish caucus remain the most powerful in the US Congress.

A terrorist attack in the current climate will have a huge impact politically and pour fuel onto an already precarious security situation. That is the reason the police in Northern Ireland and MI5 have gone on a major security drive while upgrading the threat level to severe – a level that means, in their view, attacks are highly likely to take place.

Behind all the pomp surrounding the Good Friday Agreement and the protocol deal, the fact is that the spectre of political violence has been steadily rising in Northern Ireland.

Liam Kelly, the chairman of the Northern Ireland Police Federation, wonders why the threat level was even reduced to substantial.

“Frankly, no one should be surprised by this latest MI5 intelligence assessment which acknowledges the extent of the challenge,” he said.

“This escalation in the threat level is justified. One might reasonably ask why it was downgraded to ‘substantial’ in the first place when it was clear dissident republican groups were still actively wedded to causing murder and destruction.”

There have been number of attacks, mostly foiled but some successful, by dissident republicans. The MI5 warning comes after a police officer, Detective Chief Inspector John Caldwell, was shot in Omagh. Masked gunmen shot him as he finished a football training session he ran for kids in the County Tyrone town.

DCI Caldwell remains seriously ill. Thirteen people have been arrested in connection with the killing.

The New IRA, the largest of the dissident republican groups, has claimed responsibility for the attack on DCI Caldwell, as well as an attempt to kill two police officers with a bomb in Strabane last November. It has also been linked to a number of murders including that of the journalist and author Lyra McKee in 2019.

There has also been a rise in loyalist violence, although this has been directed between rival paramilitaries and the organised crime gangs associated with some of them. It is believed that MI5 in Northern Ireland – from its base in Holywood’s Palace Barracks – has been focusing in recent months on tackling illicit money being made from drug deals, some of which have been used to purchase arms.

The loyalist groups remain adamantly opposed to what they would see as the “sell out” of Ulster, and their stance has the political cover of the DUP (Democratic Unionist Party) opposing the “Windsor Framework” Sunak agreed with the European Union.

The Loyalist Communities Council (LCC) includes representatives of the paramilitaries, the UVF (Ulster Volunteer Force), UDA (Ulster Defence Association) and the Red Hand Commando. There is no suggestion that the LCC is associated with criminality.

David Campbell, the LCC chairman, who was a chairman of the UUP (Ulster Unionist Party) acknowledges that the Windsor Framework “significantly helps trade flows between GB and NI”. But, he adds, it “does not deal with the sovereignty and consent issues which go to the heart of unionist rejection of the protocol.”

Campbell continues “we repeatedly warned the prime minister against trying to sell an imperfect deal and not consulting widely within unionism and loyalism. Sadly his consultation has been limited and audiences cherry-picked and this is the result. Spin and exaggeration will not deliver buy in from unionism.”

News outlets in Northern Ireland have reported paramilitaries threatening to “wreck the place” and that the “streets will be in flames” if the loyalists are betrayed. Security officials tell me that the groups no longer have the means to carry out sustained campaigns of violence. Most of their experienced and proficient operatives have retired, some have died. But they want to stress, they are more than capable of individual lethal attacks.

The sudden eruption of violence on the streets two years ago is a reminder of how quickly matters can escalate. Covering the rioting I saw how the older generation of combatants – nationalist and loyalist – are losing influence among the young.

I met up with an old acquaintance, a former fighter, who is connected with the Red Hand Commando, and was among those on both sides of the divide who had worked to prevent strife since the Good Friday Agreement. One of the most worrying things, said the man, then 60, was that he and his colleagues are finding it difficult to control the aggression of the youths.

“This is on both sides. An IRA man, a veteran, was told, ‘f*** off grandad’, when he tried to intervene in the riots” he said. “We hear that kind of thing on our side as well, ex-combatants of 30 years, being told to f*** off.

“Now, I am sure that on both sides 50 or 60 people can be found who won’t f*** off and can enforce calm with baseball bats. But then that would be breaking the law and the same people demanding control in the community now will be demanding prosecutions. You’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t.”

A generation has grown up in Northern Ireland since 10 April 1998 when the momentous Belfast Agreement took place and some of them are once again in paramilitary groups.

“It’s not a case of them not learning from the mistakes of the past – they weren’t even born during the Troubles”, a Northern Ireland detective said to me.

“They have guns. They may not have bomb-making skills, but they can acquire them. It may not be widely known in London, but the threat is very real here and we need to deal with it.”