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The Kew Files: Sam McBride and the secret files on Martin McGuinness, the IRA and the SDLP

Ciarán Dunbar is joined by Sam McBride to discuss the Kew Files and what they tell us about Martin McGuinness, the IRA and the SDLP.

belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/column…

Despite his hardline public stance, Jeffrey Donaldson privately said if the IRA let its arms dumps be inspected but didn’t decommission he would “stand shoulder to shoulder” with David Trimble, according to a declassified file.
➡️belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/politics/…
belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/politics/…

The DUP is now demanding unionist unity – but according to a declassified file, the party’s key strategist, Peter Robinson, knew its role in unionist disunity would boost Sinn Féin...yet went ahead with the plan regardless
➡️belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/politics/…
belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/politics/…

The Government had a “private understanding with Sinn Féin” which would have a special status. This was recorded, and has been found by Belfast Telegraph in a declassified file. The NIO is refusing to explain it, or say if this is now over.
➡️belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/politics/…
belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/politics/…

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Tony Blair worked behind the scenes to thwart a full public inquiry into the murder of Pat Finucane after a conversation with the head of MI5 made a significant impression on the Prime Minister, a Government file has revealed.
➡️belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/politics/…
belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/politics/…

Government files buried in the archives in Kew reveal Sinn Féin’s incessant lobbying for IRA members - but special lobbying for a select few, one of whom was Pearse McAuley. Now SF disowns him - and that's a slippery slope for SF.
➡️independent.ie/opinion/commen…
independent.ie/opinion/commen…

In his last major engagement as Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar praised the “very good impression” which Michelle O'Neill & Emma Little Pengelly have made since February. Ms O'Neill says it's 'business as usual' after Donaldson arrest.
➡️m.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/politics/…
m.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/politics/…

Multiple thefts linked to a Belfast missile factory were more serious than first admitted, prompting the intervention of the MoD & MI5, as they feared loyalists working with apartheid Sputh Africa, previously secret files reveal.
➡️m.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/politics/…
m.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/politics/…

Brutal IRA beatings would continue but be “less severe”, a journalist close to top republicans told the British Embassy in Dublin in 1994 - & said bluntly that Semtex was 'the movement’s b***s — no wonder we wanted them cut off'.
➡️belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/column…
belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/column…

An NI-born Downing St official discussed if the Government should let the SDLP die, but concluded if violence returned without an SDLP the conflict would be permanently transformed as 'nastier' & 'impossible to merely contain'.
➡️belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/column…
belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/column…