Interesting report from RTE outlining references to David Cameron’s approach to Northern Ireland during the devolution of policing and justice in 2010 from Hillary Clinton’s advisor Sydney Blumenthal.
He reports that Mr Cameron “has intervened, threatening recklessly to destroy a generation of work, in order potentially to gain marginal seats in NI in case of a hung parliament”, adding that “secret meetings” had been held at a country house between the Northern Ireland Unionists and the Tories.
In a later email, Mr Blumenthal again queries the commitment of Mr Cameron, who was leader of the opposition facing into a general election.
Mr Blumenthal says “it is unclear what is going on with Cameron. Is he actually pushing for the agreement or not? If he is, does he have any influence? Either Cameron is purposefully not being strong with Empey or he is being spurned, making calls.
“If he is not really pressuring Empey, it would be out of a desperate and vain attempt to grab a parliamentary seat in the case of a hung parliament – a seat that is out of his grasp – the Sylvia Hermon seat”.
Reg Empey was the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party at the time.
There are 7,800 pages emails in the current batch just released last night by the US State Department, in line with a court order to do so. Many of them are redacted. Of those released now, dozens of emails refer to Ireland in some way.
Mostly the emails comprise of news alerts and Irish and British media reportage of the progression of various rounds of talks in Northern Ireland.
David McCann holds a PhD in North-South relations from University of Ulster. You can follow him on twitter @dmcbfs
