[FuckingRotter]

In the 1970s (see Bobby Sands) the IRA waged a campaign of economic damage. If as is often suggested, the British were the masters of divide and rule, then the Provis learnt well under the heel of the boot of their masters.

The 1970s and early 1980s were a period of decline for the primary industries and manufacturing that used to underpin the United Kingdoms economy. As much of the United Kingdom began to diversify in the mid to late 1980s, the actions of the IRA contributed to an assurance that investors would not be putting their money in to the 6 counties. Northern Ireland got left behind. Even today economic growth and productivity is less than the rest of the UK, whilst unemployment continues to blight the community. Even as tourism grows, manufacturing growth is fragile, and could be snuffed out altogether if the EU gets its way.

So went the campaign of the IRA. It pretty much ensured that its support base would continue to support it, despite the type of "justices" it practised within those nationalist communities. The rest of the United Kingdom thrived, the provis ensured that Northern Ireland withered.

But, its attack on the working classes, on the poor, didn't stop there. It carried out attacks on the British mainland, those that really stand out amongst British people were in places like Guildford, Birmingham and Manchester. It isn't so much the high profile attacks that the British public remembers, as the pub and shopping centre bombings.

Most working class Brits couldn't give a flying fuck for Charlies uncle, or Norman Tebbits testicles.

Ultimately though, what probably can't be forgiven, ever, is how a movement that claimed to stand up for the poor and downtrodden, could massacre ordinary British soldiers from amongst the ranks. To British working class people this never made any sense, and felt like a betrayal. It pretty much ensured that on the mainland the only sympathy for the Irish nationalist cause would be amongst the naïve, and the likes of Ken Livingston, Jeremy Corbyn, and others that sought to further their own political cause. The type of people that also cheer for Iran, Palestinian terrorists, that sit down for lunch with ISIS sympathisers, and would happily promote that all working class people are stupid, racist, and bigots.

The British working class would never stand for a government that surrendered to the IRA, because what we saw in the IRA wasn't an enemy of the state, or a champion of the people. What we saw was a shadow state that aimed to oppress the people.

Your march from the Granby Triangle to the Old Pier Head cheering for Bobbie Sands MP was probably composed of students selling Socialist Worker, and Derek Hattons militant tendency.