In a few weeks we shall mark and celebrate the 25th anniversary of the signing of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement. That historic moment when peace was given a chance and the ending of The Troubles commenced. I believe we are wrong if we only see this as an event of interest to the island of Ireland. We forget the IRA undertook a sustained bombing campaign on the mainland as Birmingham, Manchester, Warrington, The Baltic Exchange, Downing Street, Brighton and others attest. Anyone with a military connection will recall the heightened security during those years. So the benefits of peace and peace of mind that the B/GFA ushered in touched all of us.
I chair the Northern Ireland Affairs Select Committee in the House of Commons. We are undertaking two detailed inquiries in parallel. The first is to review the workings of the institutions and processes of B/GFA; the other to assess the pernicious role and malign influence of the remnants of Loyalist and Nationalist so-called ‘paramilitaries’. Their continued existence, 25 years since the Agreement’s signing is a stain on our national life and one many of us are working to expunge.
During our inquiry we have taken oral evidence from former PMs Sir John Major and Sir Tony Blair, and former Irish Premier Bertie Ahern. We have all recognised that what the circumstances leading up to 1998 required was political bravery and leadership. It required bravery to sit down and talk to those who, bluntly wished you dead, and indeed had tried to kill you. It required leadership to make the case and political weather that the Troubles status quo was intolerable and had to cease. It also required collective political courage, across the traditional divides of political enmity, to metaphorically join hands and jump into the future.
There was nothing inevitable about this. Up until the 59th minute of the 11th hour if the cross-community dialogue had stalled then the whole thing would have collapsed with death, bloodshed and mayhem the only outcome.
Of enormous interest – to me at least, but I hope to wider society – was their unanimous answer to my question: could the B/GFA have been negotiated and agreed if social media had existed. None of them believed it would have been. The digital dog whistles would have blown, unsettling the negotiators, as the pack and tribe withdrew to their self-endorsing comfort zones.
Social media can be a great force for good but we should also understand its malign misuse and the negative impacts that it can have on delivering brave, bold, political leadership. This 25th anniversary, important in so many ways, can also remind political practitioners globally of what can be achieved if they lead rather than follow. Progress was made on our islands when the bullet and the bomb were put down. Perhaps it’s time to put down the keyboards?!?