Declassified state files from 1988 show British MPs demanded withdrawal from Northern

[jones20]

Was it really 30 years ago some interesting comments made by MPs at the time

British MPs demanded to withdraw from Ireland to let “the Irish get on with butchering each other”, newly-released files reveal.
The dramatic proposal was in response to the killing of two undercover Army corporals at an IRA funeral in West Belfast.

Newly-declassified records, released under the 30-year rule, show the murders of Derek Wood and David Howes of the Signals Regiment provoked outrage among MPs at Westminster.
The two soldiers were surrounded by a crowd when they drove into the funeral cortege of a man who had been killed by loyalist Michael Stone days earlier.
The confidential note – entitled “mood at Westminster” – was written by Irish Embassy official Richard Ryan after he spoke to around 20 MPs of “all shades” days after the murders in March 1988.

The diplomat said many MPs who did not take an active interest in affairs here became “puffed with outrage and conviction” about doing something in response to the killings.

Mr Ryan added suggestions ranged from demands for a tougher and revised policy of policing funerals to a demand for internment throughout Ireland and, in “more cases than previously”, to set a date for withdrawal from Ireland “in order to let the Irish get on with butchering each other”.

[LightOrder]

RIP Derek Wood and David Howes, 'Certa Cito'

[Keith Jones 989]

I served with ‘Del’ Woods in Lisburn and was shocked to be able to recognise him from his hair style in the footwell of that car he was trapped in and killed when I saw it on TV while I was in Hereford at home on that weekend, having been with him in ‘Control’ Ops Room just the day before! Regardless of the number of Republicans who would have died, the politicians failed those two appallingly by not ordering in massive force numbers to rescue them. They were not killed by Northern Ireland citizens, on that day, THEY WERE KILLED BY UK POLITICIANS WHO LACKED THE BALLS TO SEND THE TROOPS IN, on that day.