On This Day / August 20, 1970

RUC Arms Issue

Certain members of the RUC will continue to be trained in the use of firearms, a Government statement has said.

It came following a demand by 54 members of the RUC in the city centre ‘A’ Division of Belfast for the rearming of the force.

The Government said it agreed with the Hunt Committee recommendation that normally arms should cease to be carried by members of the force.

‘At the same time they recognise that circumstances could arise in which it would be essential for certain police personnel to be armed and recommended that revolvers, rifles and gas pistols or grenades should be made available at selective stations for issue should occasion demand it.’

New Left-wing Party

Mr Gerry Fitt, MP last night expressed confidence that the proposed left-of-centre Party would get majority backing from the Opposition groups at Stormont.

Arrangements were being made for consultations with all those MPs he hoped would come into the new alignment.

Mr Fitt said he regretted that, in the course of trying to salvage some sanity from the political chaos here, there had been precious little time for full discussions with all the Opposition members.

Replying to the earlier criticism of the new Party by Mr Paddy Kennedy, MP [Republican Labour] and his refusal to take part or assist in its formation, Mr Fitt said it was ill-opportune for his former party colleague to continue his ‘hysterical and responsible outburst’.

Mr Kennedy said he believed that the new Party was being proposed at the behest of the British Labour Party which was anxious to gain a foothold in NI.

But Mr Ivan Cooper, [Civil Rights] MP for Mid-Derry, last night denied as ‘completely without foundation’ claims of an Opposition Unity deal with British Labour.

He said that, with the Unionist Party veering to the right, the community badly needed a real political alternative.

‘It is essential to create a new left of centre party with a clear-cut anti-sectarian policy’.

The leader of the Nationalist Party, Mr James O’Reilly MP said he was not prepared to make any comment either for or against the new Party proposal.

He and his party colleagues had not been consulted. It was a very strange way for forming a united Opposition when all the members of the Opposition were not consulted.

[Dr Phoenix notes: In the backroom manoeuvres to establish the SDLP from the more dynamic Civil Rights-oriented MPs, the bulk of the old Nationalist Party was not approached. The move was rejected by the NI Labour Party despite the involvement of Devlin, its best-known MP.]