British security policy and the Sunningdale Agreement: the consequences of using force to combat terrorism in a liberal democracy1

Abstract

This chapter assesses the nine specific clauses in the Sunningdale Agreement that dealt with the implications for security policy in Northern Ireland. It analyses the consequences that these clauses had in Britain’s war against terrorism, especially as the Conservative government sought to shift the operational focus away from military-led counter-insurgency to a law enforcement-led counter-terrorism strategy. Although the policy of ‘police primacy’ did not emerge as Britain’s preferred option for tackling terrorism until 1975-76, this chapter argues that the seeds were sown by the British Government’s approach to the Sunningdale Agreement and the urgency by which it sought a cross-border arrangement with the Republic of Ireland that would enhance the security forces’ powers of pursuit, arrest and extradition. Indeed, the chapter asks whether the Conservative Party’s return to power in 1979 finally heralded a renewed vision for ‘police primacy’ in a more systematic way than that enacted by the Labour Government between 1974 and 1979. The chapter also highlights the theme of democratic control over the military instrument that would remain constant right up to the signing of the Anglo-Irish Agreement in 1985 and beyond. Indeed, it makes the case - pace Evelegh (1978) and Neumann (2003) – that the British government’s use of the military instrument as an option of last resort is fundamental to our understanding of Britain’s long war on Irish terrorism. This is relevant today, of course, particularly as Britain faces another (albeit much less sustained) armed challenge from dissident republicans. In conclusion, the chapter reflects on how liberal democracies more broadly have responded to the challenge posed by terrorism.