Can the dissident republicans repeat the provisional IRA campaign? The answer, happily, is no. But they do have a purchase on events in Northern Ireland. Their activities serve to intensify unionist fears about the devolution of policing and justice at the very moment when first minister Peter Robinson of the DUP is under intense pressure from Sinn Féin to deliver that agenda.
If Robinson does not deliver, he faces the prospect of Sinn Féin forcing an assembly election even before the general election – an election that is likely to be messy and to have destabilising effects on the functioning of the St Andrews Agreement.
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