Thread by @gavinsblog

So I stayed up too late last night reading the speeches of one Winston Churchill in the House of Commons..

I landed on one debate in particular from December 1921. It was over the King's Speech given earlier that year. Ireland had reached an armistice with the UK earlier that year, following two years of guerilla war seeking our exit from the Union.

And we had signed the Anglo-Irish Treaty earlier that month, leading to the establishment of the Irish Free State with "Dominion" status.

Let's have a quick run through the debate. It's about the terms of the "withdrawal" agreement.

Asquith: "No Irish Government would be so insane as to mortgage its scanty margin of resources for such a fruitless and costly enterprise as the creation of an Irish Navy.... Have they demanded it?"

Answer: Yes.

Asquith: "apart from the special agreement, the British Navy, with all its overwhelming resources in material, personnel, equipment and experience, would always at any moment be able to use Irish ports for the purposes of Imperial defence."

Lloyd George: yea but..

John Gretton (Member for Burton): We didn't know what was being negotiated and we've only see the WA now. Last occasion for those who think it "Will not bring peace" "Will not settle the Irish controversy"

Gretton: "Jockeyed into an agreement"

Gretton: "What becomes of the Kingdom of Ireland?" "The coinage will be altered."The Royal Arms will be altered" "In regard to foreign treaties, the rights of the Crown will again be limited. What do we get in exchange"

Gretton. (*spoiler alert*: Ireland declaring a Republic later was part of the plan) We also had a civil war partly based on the oath remaining and not achieving a full exit from the UK.

Gretton: We are betraying Ulster.

Gretton: "They have rebelled against the Crown... responsible for an atrocious series of assassinations. They have not made open war; they have established a system of terrorism by the assassination of those who opposed them, men, women or children, armed or unarmed."

Gretton: TL;DR, Vote against the Treaty.

Mr Rupert Gwynne , Eastbourne: A murder gang.

Skipping ahead to Churchill's first intervention. The "last two years" a reference to the War of Independence. How familiar this sounds:

"..veto anything which is not to our liking, and that there will then be an end to all this tiresome Irish business"

Churchill: The Irish war of independence had popular support. "Our soldiers and policemen were murdered". "They.. retaliated." "I am not going to blame them now or at any other time"

Churchill: "The gaols are filled with Irish convicts". "Four thousand interned persons, against whom there was no evidence, and no means of formulating a charge—[Hon. MEMBERS: "Shame!"]—were wired in compounds all over the country." "Martial law was declared."

Churchill: "There was, of course, no doubt of the power of Great Britain to crush Irish resistance, if we chose to employ enough men and to employ them long enough."

Churchill: "Mr. de Valera in the remotest haunts of the rebels, or what might be called in the secret hiding places of the murder gang, and when he demanded fair speech for his Irish fellow-countryman."

Churchill: Without the Treaty - more soldiers would be needed and martial law in 26 counties.

Then the issue of allegiance is raised. And Ulster.

Churchill: "we hope that some day—surely we are permitted to do so—Ulster will join herself with Southern Ireland, and that the national unity of Ireland within the British Empire will be attained"

Churchill: "it is quite easy to find fault with the details of the Treaty"; "unity between North and South of their country for which more than anything else in the whole of this settlement they care"

Churchill: "This is not a partisan solution" "Complete fiscal autonomy is conceded"

Rupert Gwynne (Eastbourne) argues that the rebel leaders (basically the Irish negotiating team) should be locked up.

Lads don't be calling each other murderers. Sorry, it was organising murders, which is worse.

Gwynne "what effect must this surrender, or Treaty, or whatever you like to call it, have on other parts of our Empire? It is a direct inducement to the rebels in India to go on and shoot more..If they only make themselves unpleasant enough, if they only murder sufficient people"

I LOLd at this one. Gwynne: "I do not think there is much of the lion about this Agreement... more like a rabit.. it has some characteristics which some Members of the Government seem to have. For instance, if they are frightened, they eat their own offspring"

Churchill: "They say the Treaty is not satisfactory." "It is high time that the main body of Irish and British opinion asserted its determination to put a stop to these fanatical quarrels."

Churchill: "Are we not getting a little tired of all this?"

Churchill: " No doubt England is conceding more to Ireland in this Treaty than she has as a nation ever been willing to concede before, and no doubt she has done it, not only with a view to the future, but with a sincere desire to end a period of brutal and melancholy violence"

Churchill "It is not as a humiliation that this event is viewed by the world or by the Empire. It is as a great and peculiar manifestation of British genius, at which the friends of England all over the world have rejoiced. Every foe of England has been dumbfounded." Trumpian.

Ok this passage is *fascinating*. Churchill muses: "How is it that the great English parties are shaken to their foundations, and even shattered, almost every generation, by contact with Irish affairs.. Whence does this mysterious power of Ireland come?"

He continues: "How is it that she sways our councils, shakes our parties, and infects us with her bitterness, convulses our passions, and deranges our action?.. How is it she has forced generation after generation to stop the whole traffic of the British Empire?

There's a complete lack of self awareness here too from Churchill. "How much have we suffered in all these generations from this continued, hostility?" Some might rightly argue the suffering was pretty one-sided.

Churchill then compares situation to South Africa.

Ronald McNeill (Canterbury) replies, and quotes Michael Collins.

Bonar Law (Glasgow): "offering to Ulster, if they would come in, every conceivable guarantee". Sounds familiar.

Bonar Law muses on future Irish taxation policies.

Bonar Law musing on Ulster. "I do not look upon existing conditions as permanent. Heaven forbid! If they were permanent the whole thing would be a failure."

Redmond responding to that last line I think: Not in the South though.

*sigh*

Sir Maurice Dockrell (Dublin Rathmines) here correcting the use of "Ulster" "Nothern Ireland" etc. 100 years later we are still correcting people.

Robert Lynn (Belfast)

In fairness Lynn was right about this.

Interesting summary here of Irish history from Major Malone (from Ireland).

Lieut.-Colonel Sir W. ALLEN here laments the lack of co-education of Catholics and Protestants in Ireland.

"It is a British characteristic, though not an agreeable one.. once we are beaten we go over in a body to the successful enemy and too often abandon and cold-shoulder and snub, both in action and in writing, the suffering few who adhered to our cause in evil and difficult times"

The damn PRESS!

Hamar Greenwood (Sunderland) brings up the "Customs" issue on the border. In 1921. *sigh*

Henry Croft (Bournemouth); "the murders were so numerous, the ferocity of the criminals was so great, and the methods of assassination were so fiendish", questions if they can trust the Irish negotiators given their role in the war in Ireland.

Croft, after complaining about the short period for debate, then says any loyalists in the South should be able to move to Britain.

If this passage sounds familiar it's because it is. One of the WA concerns was about Ireland having her own Navy. It's like a naval backstop. No Navy, or no Navy for 5 years, or maybe a Navy subject to chats in 5 years' time?

Last line of the debate that day in 1921 from Worthington Evans (Colchester): "This Treaty renders such support possible, and I hope and believe that the Irish may still be willing to share the glory and the burden of Empire." Nope, it was not to be.

Cheeks folks! That Churchill intervention though. Gas.

Sorry, full debate here: theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=19… thanks @TheyWorkForYou