Irish & British dopers:
I just read on the internet news that the British government is going to suspend Northern Ireland’s government.
Does this mean that “The Troubles” will return?
Suspension is an alternative to one or various of the larger parties refusing to participate in the institution, thus collapsing its authority permanently, as happened in the 1970s. It will hopefully buy time to come to some kind of compromise, and allow Stormont to run again.
IMO it means that the Troubles are a little bit closer to coming back now than they have been in the past 4 years (though they never went away 100%). But bear in mind the NI government’s been suspended twice (?) before since the Good Friday Agreement, so, while not being totally blasé at the magnitude of what’s happening, the IRA’s not talking yet about coming out of ceasefire (of course, some terror groups never went on ceasefire, but that’s a different issue), so I have my fingers crossed that it won’t progress to all-out conflict again. Hopefully ever.
I’m sure someone will come along and correct me on the minutae of the above.
I doubt we will see the troubles return. We have come too far to go back now, and I think the IRA realise this.
That said, Dissidents will still cause trouble.
It’s going to take alot of trust and understanding to get things back to what they were.