Police Open a Dedicated Enquiry Team Over the Drumcree Blockade
A third day brought no resolution, but the policing posture hardened. An assistant chief constable confirmed a dedicated enquiry team is reviewing evidence from Sunday, when more than a thousand people blocked a route the courts had cleared, and said “anyone who has broken the law will be investigated”. The blockade was unnotified and therefore unlawful. The First Minister was in the crowd.
That last fact is what turns a parading dispute into a problem for devolved government, and the Portadown Orange Order has now lodged a complaint with the Chief Constable over the attendance of Michelle O’Neill and the Sinn Féin president Mary Lou McDonald. The Northern Ireland Secretary Sir Chris Bryant, speaking in Liverpool before travelling back, set the register carefully: the situation “is tense”, the government “will always go the extra mile for peace”, and “nobody, nobody, nobody wants Northern Ireland to return to the 1990s”. He also named the asymmetry that defines the week: “It’s really easy to stir up a grievance, much harder to calm it down.” No fresh parade has been notified, though the Order insists its application is still live and that it wishes to bring its banner home. Watch whether an international mediator is appointed.