Troubles ahead

If the Belfast riots were happening in any other city in the United Kingdom, there would be uproar. For almost five weeks there have been violent clashes each night. Live rounds have been fired on city streets, politicians’ houses set ablaze, petrol bombs thrown at police and over 60 officers hurt. David Cameron seems to be doing his best to pretend that nothing is happening. The Prime Minister, like most in Britain, appears to be clinging to the lie that the 1998 Good Friday agreement somehow brought peace to Northern Ireland.

There is sadly nothing anachronistic about the loyalist riots and they are only tangentially related to the alleged cause — the number of days in which the Union flag is flown over City Hall. As with the continuing violence of untamed republican paramilitaries, the outbreak of rage exposes the real legacy of the Good Friday agreement: institutional instability. By rewarding the extremists — and thus destabilising the centre — the British, Irish and, indeed, American governments taught aspiring malcontents that intransigence and violence pays.