Sam McBride on the DUP's route to power sharing: Deceit, flattery and secret Sinn Féin talks
Flattery, deceit, a bung, MI5, and the secret back-channel to Sinn Féin - uncovered files have revealed the DUP's route to power-sharing.
Publicly the DUP refused to talk to Sinn Féin, Ian Paisley wanted 'Sackcloth and Ashes'.
But the truth was that the party was in direct talks with Republicans.
In public, Ian Paisley's party insisted it was united – but the reality was very different.
Peter Robinson was briefing the government on how to deal with an increasingly frail Paisley – and the two big factions of the party disagreed on power-sharing.
Whilst the DUP did end up going into government with Sinn Féin, the talks of the early 2000s ultimately floundered just before the IRA's audacious Northern Bank robbery.
To tell this tale of political intrigue, money, and what some might call betrayal, Ciarán Dunbar is joined by Belfast Telegraph's Northern Ireland editor Sam McBride, who has been looking through the formerly classified Kew Files in London.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
a few seconds ago
- The Independent
Trump's approval ratings drop with Republicans as he deals with Epstein fallout and tariff concerns
President Donald Trump's approval ratings with Republicans have dropped as he handles fallout from the so-called 'Epstein Files', and concerns about rising prices linked to his global tariffs. A new poll this week, from YouGov and The Economist, revealed 13 percent of Republicans disapproved of the president, with 83 percent approving. The poll was conducted among 1,577 adults across the U.S. This number had increased from May when a similar poll found that 9 percent of that group disapproved of the president. A YouGov/Economist poll, taken on January 26- 28, days after Trump returned to the White House, revealed only a 5 percent disapproval rate among right-leaning Americans. The president's slowly but surely declining approval rating, even among his own supporters, may indicate that his loyal MAGA base is faltering. Specifically, Trump's approval rating with right-leaning Americans has declined on issues including personal trust and the economy. In June, inflation rose to 2.7 percent. Job growth slowed down last month with just 73,000 jobs added to the economy, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The unemployment rate rose to 4.2 percent, but remains historically low. Trump fired head of the bureau, Erika McEntarfer, after the surprisingly weak jobs report, claiming without evidence that the numbers had been rigged. On Monday, he appointed conservative economist E.J. Antoni to the role. The president is seeing inflation rise even as he promised that it would end on the first day of his second stint in the White House. "Starting on day one, we will end inflation and make America affordable again, to bring down the prices of all goods," he said at an election rally last August. Trump's sagging approval rating among his own supporters also comes amid concerns about his tariff policy. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick predicted that monthly revenue would reach $50 billion due to the new taxes on imports - however, JP Morgan warned that the costs will ultimately be passed onto consumers in the form of higher prices. Trump's economic approval rating with Republicans dropped from 90 percent in January to 79 percent this month. When it comes to inflation, his approval rating went from 84 percent to 72 percent. While the vast majority of Republicans and right-leaning Americans still support the president, the polling trends indicate that economic worries may be eating into that support. Voters' views on Trump's trustworthiness also took a hit. Between the January poll and the latest survey, Republicans who think the president is untrustworthy went from 7 to 14 percent. One major issue that has caused ruptures in the MAGA base is the Trump administration's handling of the investigation into deceased sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein. Many conservatives, along with Democrats, were outraged by a July 6 memo from the Department of Justice and FBI which concluded that Epstein died by suicide and that there was no 'client list' of high-profile figures involved in his alleged sex trafficking scheme. Attorney General Pam Bondi had earlier insinuated there was a client list sitting on her desk, and that much more information was to be revealed in the investigation. Trump reacted to the uproar by telling his supporters to move on from Epstein. In the weeks following the DOJ memo, the Wall Street Journal published a bombshell story about Trump sending Epstein, his onetime friend, a 'bawdy' birthday sketch in 2003 which reportedly read: 'Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.' The president denied creating the card, and filed a $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the WSJ and its owner Rupert Murdoch. Subsequent reporting also revealed that Trump was informed by Bondi in May that his name appeared in the Epstein files, along with many other high-profile people. Last month Trump denied Bondi had told him that he appears in the Epstein files. The president has never been formally accused or charged with a crime in connection with Epstein. And the issue is unlikely to disappear. Representatives Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, and Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, are planning to bring Epstein survivors to the Capitol for a press conference on September 3 when the House returns from recess.
The Guardian
3 hours ago
- The Guardian
Some Democrats want to use gerrymandering. That's a bad idea
When Texas Republicans unveiled yet another contorted congressional map last week – one that would all but erase Austin's Latino-led seat and increase the Republican party's federal House tally by up to five seats in total – the outcry from Democrats was immediate and justified. But beyond the Democratic state legislators' brave effort to stymie the proposal by boycotting the vote, a different refrain has also been heard by leading Democrats in other states: if they do it, why can't we? Governor Gavin Newsom of California has vowed to 'fight fire with fire', advancing a proposal that would redraw California's own congressional map to offset Republican gains in Texas. New York's Kathy Hochul has also embraced the prospect of aggressive gerrymandering in Democratic-controlled states, sidestepping the independent commissions that Democrats themselves had once championed and successfully implemented in both California and New York. It is an understandable impulse, but it is the wrong one – for both strategic and principled reasons. To begin with, Democrats are destined to lose a gerrymandering arms race. They control fewer state legislatures and the very nature of electoral map engineering currently favors Republican power-grabbing, since most Democratic voters live in densely populated urban areas, which makes it easier to concentrate them in fewer electoral districts. A simulation conducted through 538's Atlas of Redistricting in which every state is aggressively gerrymandered to maximize the House seats of the party in power at the state level results in a notional House of 262 Republicans and 173 Democrats: a 30-plus seat jump for the Republican party compared with a non-partisan map that maximizes for district compactness. Nor is this a far-fetched scenario. Rather than forcing the other side to back down, retaliation appears more likely to lead to further escalation, in this as in other domains of all-out binary conflict. When running for governor of Illinois in 2018, JB Pritzker had initially pledged to back an independent districting commission but subsequently signed one of the most brutal Democratic gerrymandering plans in the country, which has yielded just three Republican districts out of 17 in a state where Donald Trump won 43% of the votes in 2024. That precedent is now being pointed to by Texas Republicans to justify their own gerrymandering plan. But there is also a deeper reason why 'fighting fire with fire' is a bad idea when the goal is to protect democracy from purported challenges to it: the 'fire' in question amounts to a violation of one of democracy's core values – ultimately, the principle of voting equality – and would therefore end up doing the work of democracy's enemies for them. The metaphor of 'fighting fire with fire' can in fact be traced back to the thought of the German émigré scholar to the United States, Karl Loewenstein, who in the 1930s recommended the use of self-consciously 'anti-democratic means' – such as party bans and restrictions of voting rights – to fight fascism, in the name of what he called 'militant democracy'. Far from achieving their intended goal, such measures were instrumental in the consolidation of the Nazi regime in Germany, given that Adolf Hitler was first nominated chancellor through an emergency presidential decree intended to forestall the prospect of a socialist takeover (construed as a greater threat for German democracy than nazism itself), and that the ban on other political parties Hitler quickly imposed was justified on the grounds that it was necessary to protect the German constitutional order in the aftermath of the Reichstag fire of 1934. Similarly perverse uses of the logic of 'militant democracy' have since become a standard component of the authoritarian playbook – from Augusto Pinochet's 1973 coup in Chile to Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's 2016 counter-coup in Turkey, both of which undid democracy in their countries under the guise of protecting it against purported enemies. A fully gerrymandered congressional map in the United States would thus not just be bad for Democrats. It would also be terrible for American democracy since it would effectively disenfranchise local minorities across the country, yielding an overall competition between two mirroring forms of authoritarianism: Democratic or Republican one-party rule at the local level. If Democrats want to continue to portray themselves as the party of democracy against the Trump administration's thinly veiled authoritarian ambitions, they should begin by practicing on own their turf the same principles of democratic civility and self-restraint they accuse their opponents of violating. Crucially, this doesn't mean 'doing nothing' in the face of Republican gerrymandering. The point is rather that (big and small 'D') Democrats should use democratic rather than authoritarian means to protect democracy against its enemies – which is to say, win elections by advancing more attractive policy platforms and mobilizing voters more effectively in support of them, rather than by changing the rules to their own benefit. That the Trump administration's substantive policy decisions – from its inflationary trade wars to the fiscally regressive One Big Beautiful Bill Act – seem destined to do most harm its own electoral constituencies offers plenty of opportunity for fair-and-square political comeback. Ultimately, however, the Democrats' chances of success in upcoming electoral cycles will depend on their capacity to present a more attractive political alternative to the current Republican party's brand of populist authoritarianism. Instead of mirroring their opponents, Democrats should therefore seek to differentiate themselves from them, which at present can only mean: strict adherence to democratic norms and forthright advocacy of a more progressive policy platform. When a house is on fire, more fire won't help. What is needed is water – which is to say, something different, that is at the same time an antidote against fire's damaging effects. Carlo Invernizzi-Accetti is an associate professor of political science at the City University of New York, City College
Spectator
4 hours ago
- Spectator
Can Trump take down the cartels?
In December 1989, the United States invaded Panama. The objective was Manuel Noriega, a pineapple-faced general who'd risen to power in a coup d'etat and turned his small, Central American country into a pit stop for Pablo Escobar's cocaine moving north. Noriega fled to the Vatican Embassy, where the US Army blasted heavy metal music until the opera-loving despot surrendered. The invasion of Panama took place when the war on drugs – at that time, crack cocaine – was a priority for the US government under George Bush Snr. Now, with the deadly opioid crisis and immigration on top of the agenda, Donald Trump might be treading in those footsteps. The commander-in-chief has signed an executive order greenlighting military action against Latin American mobs his administration has branded as terrorists, akin to Isis or al-Qaeda: several Mexican drug mafias, notably the Jalisco and Sinaloa; Venezuela's vicious Tren de Aragua gang and the Cartel of the Suns, a cabal of coke-dealing generals; and the tattooed gangbangers of Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13). While observers and insiders are sure something as drastic as Panama is unlikely, it's still unclear what Trump is trying to accomplish. 'It's very difficult to make predictions when it comes to Trump,' noted Phil Gunson, senior analyst for Crisis Group. 'However, full-scale military intervention is unimaginable, and any action would no doubt be limited to special forces or – more likely – some form of bombardment, probably using drones.' In this reinvigorated war on drugs, the primary targets will likely be the Mexican cartels responsible for the deluge of fentanyl pouring over the southern border. For years now the Republicans have been calling to send in the troops, and Trump himself has reportedly pondered the possibilities, from a naval blockade to dispatching commando kill squads to liquidate narco warlords. Since Trump's return to the White House, the CIA has been flying spy drones over Mexico, perhaps laying the groundwork for a strike. 'It would probably be drone strikes rather than boots on the ground, but that could invite boots on the ground later, especially if the cartels decide to respond in kind,' says Sanho Tree of the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington DC. 'The Zetas [cartel] would murder their rivals and hang their bodies from bridges with signs saying 'this is what happens if you oppose us.' Imagine if the cartels started doing that with the thousands of US nationals – expats, retirees, corporate executives or embassy officials – that are in Mexico. Jimmy Carter lost his election in 1980 because of the 50 plus American hostages in Tehran. Imagine if they took hostages in Mexico and started sending back a finger or a limb each week.' This won't be the first time Trump has let loose the dogs of war on drug peddlers, blowing apart the Taliban's heroin labs with warplanes in his first term. And yet, two decades of occupation failed to dislodge Afghanistan as the number one smack producer in the world. 'They're using a military solution to an economic problem,' said Tree. 'If you're fighting terrorists, they have a political objective and a command structure so they can order their footsoldiers to stand down and lay down their weapons. If you apply this strategy to drug cartels, you're actually making the drugs more valuable. You're amplifying the motivational feedback loop of the people you're trying to stop. So the question becomes then not if you're going to continue making money smuggling drugs, but how much money are you going to make? There's no command structure of the international drug economy that says OK everyone, surrender now, we've had enough.' The potential for collateral damage is high. Tree pointed to US-sponsored counternarcotics efforts in Peru, where the army shot down suspected narco planes in the jungle. That practice ended after the Peruvians accidentally downed an aircraft carrying an American missionary and her daughter. Then there's Mexico's fierce patriotism to consider. One origin story for the word 'gringo', as Mexicans call Yanks, dates back to the 1846-48 Mexican-American war, when American soldiers marched past crowds of Mexicans on the street chanting 'green, go home!' 'Mexican nationalism is largely defined in opposition to its powerful northern neighbour,' explained Gunson. 'The Mexican government has made it clear that it would never give permission for any form of military action by the US on Mexican soil. If Trump were to go ahead despite Mexico's refusal it would bring about the most severe crisis in US-Mexican relations in living memory, with repercussions throughout the region and beyond.' Another possibility is striking Mexican cartels' affiliates in third countries such as Ecuador, where Blackwater chief Erik Prince has been spotted tagging along on drug busts. The situation with Venezuela is somewhat different. The US has directly accused Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro of running drugs through the Cartel of the Suns, and the Tren de Aragua gang of carrying out hits on his behalf, such as the murder of dissident Ronald Ojeda in Chile. 'There are two competing foreign policy factions wrangling over Venezuela within the Trump administration,' Gunson explained. 'The faction led by Marco Rubio favours 'maximum pressure' to force Maduro from power, while that led by special envoy Ric Grenell is focused on extracting advantages for the US regardless of who is in power in Caracas. Trump is much closer to the Grenell line, and much of the rhetoric about Maduro's alleged links to drug trafficking and terrorism is designed to enable the hardliners to keep their constituents happy, rather than indicating any genuine intention to move against the Venezuelan government. While the Maduro government is indeed corrupt and there are high-ranking Venezuelan officials linked to organised crime, the allegations themselves are overblown.' For now, however, the criminals are not too concerned. 'I don't think so about Trump invading Mexico,' said a high-ranking member of the Sinaloa Cartel. 'Is not so easy as he says.'
