This is one of the biggest misunderstandings about the Northern Ireland peace process. The idea the UK Government was never open to talks doesn't stand up under close scrutiny.
It was the UK Government who always insisted that there can be no coercion of Ulster as far back as 1920s or earlier:
"I come now to the more vexed question of Ulster. Here we had all given a definitely clear pledge that, under no conditions, would we agree to any proposals that would involve the coercion of Ulster.....Therefore, on policy I have always been in favour of the pledge that there should be no coercion of Ulster.
We have never for a moment forgotten the pledge—not for an instant. That did not preclude us from endeavouring to persuade Ulster to come into an All-Ireland Parliament."
- David Lloyd George, the then Prime Minister, in the House of Commons on 14 December 1921.
Fast forward to the 1970s for relevancy.
The Northern Ireland Secretary of State, Willie Whitelaw held a meeting with PIRA leaders in 1972, some of whom were in prison. The Government allowed them to come out to England for this.
Does that sound like a Government not in favour of talks with a view to resolving the conflict?
Obviously not.
No, the problem was the PSF/PIRA leaders made unreasonable demands which no sovereign Government would have been able to accept. Basically, PIRA told Whitelaw they wanted the UK Government out of Northern Ireland and for the British Army to withdraw.
What would have been the result of that?
Full blown civil war.
Besides, PSF/PIRA had NO mandate from the people for their terrorism. 70% of Catholics didn't support them and the leader of the biggest Nationalist Party, John Hume told them publicly the Provo argument was wrong, partitionist, fascist and deeply out of date.
PSF/PIRA only wanted total victory. Hence their delusional "Freedom '74" posters. This is the classic fundamentalist terrorist position.
As PSF/PIRA saw it, political solutions proposed by the UK Government was evidence the Sovereign Power was crumbling or close to it. Like I said, a delusional view!
PIRAs view of the democratic 1973 referendum was this:
“The Border Poll will be viewed as one of the most stupid acts of the British Government, It is an insult to all Irish people that a foreign government should usurp the inalienable right of the people of this country to determine their own future."
And set bombs off in England on the same day!
This is evidence of a terrorist group NOT in the mood for a peaceful political settlement. See further PSF/PIRA statements below:
"There have been no discussions with the British Government or with any official acting on its behalf since the beginning of 1976. We now regard such talks as entirely futile and the only time we will talk to the British again is when they come to us and ask our help to seecure their immediate departure from Ireland."
And:
"We can't give up now and admit that the men and women we sent to their graves died for nothing. The struggle must continue now until victory is achieved and we are determined to do that."
And:
"Our aim now is to win the struggle on this occasion and we are prepared to make whatever sacrifices are necessary to achieve this."
The Sunningdale and Anglo-Irish Agreement eras both demonstrate to us all that the IRA would NOT have given up violence unless they were made to do so by the State's security forces. There is absolutely no reason to believe that the IRA would have given up violence in the 1990s for any other reason than defeat.
As long as fundamentalist terrorist groups believe they can win based on the prevailing health of their organisation, they’ll continue to use violence in aid of their objectives.
Once weakened, such groups will see their leadership drop their previously fundamentalist position and agree to whatever conditions the sovereign power or powers impose.
"Statesmanship consists not merely in the wisdom of your proposals, but in the choosing of the right moment. My right hon. Friend the Member for Paisley..........knows what it is to settle an action, and he knows it depends upon your choosing exactly the moment.
You must not choose it when the parties are full of fight, when they are confident they are going to win, when they are confident, not merely in the justice of their case, but in the invincibility of their counsel. Who can stand against it? That is not the time to settle. You have got to wait until difficulties have cropped up which they had never foreseen, when doubt begins to enter their minds as to the completeness of their victory, when the costs are mounting up, and the only smile is on the face of the solicitor, when they are tired out by pleadings and counter-pleadings and all the delays and wearing mechanism of the law. That is the time.
But if you propose too soon, it means not merely that you fail then, but that you interpose obstacles in the way of settling at the right time."
- David Lloyd George, the then Prime Minister, in the House of Commons on 14 December 1921.
In other words, you have to know when the enemy is defeated in order to impose conditions for a peace process.
That's why Frankie Quinn, senior member of the PIRA's East Tyrone brigade, said the following:
"We were saying the armed struggle’s failed, it can’t win. The jails are filling up, people are dying left, right and centre and the British are getting the better hand on us.
Obviously we knew in our hearts that we were deeply, deeply infiltrated at a very high level.
The armed struggle had to stop. We’d dump weapons, call the ceasefire, and then go into talks."
That's a sincere acknowledgement of defeat from a senior member of PIRA.
Another member of PIRA, Kieran Conway agreed with this and said the following:
"The attrition rate was just so appalling.
The SAS, the British intelligence services were obviously in a position to intercept most operations.
It was absolutely clear that we were losing if we hadn’t already lost the war and that it was time to cash in the chips.”
PIRA member John Crawley, an ex-US Marine before joining PIRA, asserted:
"It was a defeat for the Republican Movement, a complete military and ideological defeat across the board that opened up career paths for certain members of the leadership, but left us ideologically destroyed."
Crawley also described the British as "masters at counter-insurgency".
For PSF/PIRA anything less than total and outright victory is defeat.
To go back to David Lloyd George's 1921 statement above again, what the British Government did with the IRA in 1920 and 1998 can be summed up by Sun Tzu below:
"A surrounded army must be given a way out. The ancient rule of the charioteers says, “Surround them on three sides, leaving one side open, to show them a way to life. Show them a way to life so that they will not be in the mood to fight to the death…”
An enemy that knows it is defeated in all but name is given a way out to save face and spare further bloodshed.
And ONLY an enemy that knows it is defeated in all but name WILL take the conditions given by the dominant power.
That is the position the IRA found itself in 1998. It was defeated and so accepted the conditions of the British Government which had been resolute for most of the 20th Century.
PIRA achieved NONE of their long held key core demands in the Belfast Agreement. The British Government, on the other hand, achieved their key core goals.
The UK Government did give PSF/PIRA a face saving way out. This has been called the propaganda of the peace. I'll try to explain it another time.