Report on North’s terror groups - Another test for Sinn Féin credibility

They do this because a large section their constituency, reactionary and frighteningly insular in many instances, reject the idea of climate change. Challenging that dangerous delusion would be electorally far too expensive. Telling the truth would cost votes.
Irish republicans who pursue their ambitions through Sinn Féin are in a pretty similar bind. Even if they know — or even suspect — that the essential details contained in the report into the current status of paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland are accurate they cannot acknowledge that position. If they did it would be, in any rational society, political suicide. And why would they? Trenchant, unwavering and barely believeable stonewalling has been a successful tactic for the party’s leadership for decades.