It does not bother me that I am ineligible for BNP membership. Whom to let in, or not, is a matter for the party in question, and no business of the State. I take the same view of all-women shortlists: if a party has poor enough judgement, and so very condescending an attitude to women, to want such a device, then that is just another very good reason not to vote for that party. Again, no business of the State. As with State funding, where would this nationalisation end?
Why the fuss a while ago about the BNP requiring a membership number on application forms for its employment? I can tell you for a fact that so does the Labour Party. Is a Labour Party membership number also required on the form to be on the Cameron A-list? Or did that list’s preponderance of persons thus numbered just happen anyway?
Clearly ALL political parties employ a "members only" policy to a greater or lesser extent.
ReplyDeleteThe occasional SDLP politicians Paddy Devlin and Gerry Fitt relied on British Labour Party contacts to supply the first General Secretary of the SDLP. Turned out he was MI5 agent.
Sinn Féin would have been er.....less forgiving........allegedly.
Really? Has there been anyone in Sinn Fein for anything up to the last 20 years who has NOT been either a Police informer or an MI5 agent?
ReplyDeleteWell the thing about the so called REAL IRA (as evidenced by arrests after killings earlier this year) is that every cell has three members.
ReplyDeleteOne is an MI5 agent
The second is a PSNI agent
And the third gets arrested.
As to the General Secretary of SDLP, they should have noticed he went to Oxford.
Although it is well established (and British Intelligence often emphasised the point to de-stabalise and sew doubt in the enemy) that Sinn Féin was infiltrated, it is less well known that Irish Republican Army agents worked in DHSS offices, Motor Tax Offices, Hospital Medical Records Offices, Rates Offices etc where they had access to information...in part British government "fair employment legislation" multiplied the numbers involved.
ReplyDelete"Prison visitors" sponsored by the Catholic Church and teachers in Prison Education Service and even tutors at QUB made excellent agents ......
Ironically a new MA course starting at QUB in September is a project on MI5 (no shortage of volunteer students in Belfast).
The whole "Intelligence" story is one that cannot yet be told but those of us with a sense of History will be hopeful that it CAN be told....eventually