There may be a temptation on this side of the Irish Sea to regard as entertainment the recent scandals among the upper echelons of Britain’s ruling class. This would be a mistake, if only for the reason that what is happening within Britain’s governing Labour Party and its monarchy has the capacity to impact Ireland, on both sides of the border. Clearly, the Six Counties—which remain within London’s jurisdiction—are directly affected. Yet so too is the southern state, as a consequence of its connection with certain dark elements of the British establishment.
Let’s be clear: the outworking of the Epstein scandal cannot be dismissed as confined to the proverbial “few bad apples” syndrome. For Keir Starmer, who spent five years as the UK’s Director of Public Prosecutions, to claim that he simply accepted Peter Mandelson’s assurance that he had nothing to hide before appointing him ambassador to Washington is not credible. Is he attempting to say that his intelligence agencies failed to inform him of their mandatory vetting and due diligence findings?
Nor is the fact that Starmer’s advisor, Morgan McSweeney, could have been unaware of the real situation remotely plausible, if only due to the fact that Mandelson had previously been dismissed from cabinet positions on two occasions for malpractice. The only tenable explanation is that the prime minister and his team were either indifferent to the sleazy reality or viewed it as affording them leverage over the wretched individual in question.
And if there is a stink hanging over Downing Street’s incumbents, the stench emerging from the monarchy is stifling. From sharing sensitive and restricted financial information with the Epstein network, to an extremely disturbing relationship with underage girls, to flagrant misappropriation of taxpayers’ funds, the recently demoted Prince Andrew has behaved reprehensibly. He would surely be in prison were it not for his position within the monarchy.
A major point to bear in mind about the Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor story is that his toxic behaviour was undoubtedly well known—and indeed recorded—by the reigning monarchs and the state’s intelligence agencies for years before being publicly exposed. As a senior member of the royal family, Andrew had a round-the-clock security detail affording him close protection. His security detail would have been charged with a serious dereliction of duty had it failed to rigorously check the identity and background of every person in close contact with their charge. Doing so would have required the involvement of many members of the intelligence agencies and, undoubtedly, the maintenance of records.
What other explanation could there be for the monarchy paying a multi-million-pound sum to settle out of court with Virginia Giuffre? Nor should we be misled by the apparent impartial and rigorous application of the law with the arrests of Mandelson and Mountbatten-Windsor. They are now the scapegoats. Moreover, being well aware of the rules of the game, they will be expected to “take a hit for the team” and say nothing.
When viewed in the round, it is obvious that there is a prevailing policy of deliberate obfuscation about how affairs of state are managed. Not only that, but there is an absence of transparency as to from where and by whom power is ultimately exercised in Britain. In practice, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that the deep state exercises more influence than will ever be admitted.
How this set-up affects Ireland may be difficult to see at first. However, the deliberate concealment of state-tolerated criminality is hardly a revelation for anyone following news reports from the Six Counties. Indeed, the charging of a tiny number of British Army veterans may now be viewed as a cynical strategy to deflect attention from the dark hand of the deep state. Only the age-old call to break the Union will allow for this threat to be definitively addressed.
In relation to the Republic, the situation is somewhat different but disturbing nonetheless. Plans are currently afoot in Dublin to align the southern state’s defence within the armed forces of Britain, France, the EU, and NATO. There will not be a referendum on this crucially important issue. The decision to do so will be taken by the coalition cabinet without any wider consultation with the electorate.
Worryingly, therefore, Ireland’s place in the world may now be decided—not even by English parliamentarians, but by faceless actors in Britain operating in concert with other forces acting in the interests of imperialism.
There may be some temporary amusement to be obtained from the spectacle of these one-time pillars of the British establishment under arrest in the back of a police car. But before enjoying their plight, just bear in mind that nothing has changed in relation to the underlying power structure in Britain. It is best that we always remain aware of how that system operates in order to preserve its power, because only by understanding this can we hope to overcome its destructive potential.
