Neither Confirm Nor Deny: British Intelligence, Lawless Agent Running and the Suppression of Truth

by John Ware

In January 1980, a secret review quietly rewired Britain’s war in Northern Ireland. Commissioned by the Chief Constable of the RUC and led by future MI5 Director General Sir Patrick Walker, it placed intelligence above the law - and changed everything.

What followed was a vast, covert agent-running machine that penetrated the Provisional IRA at unprecedented depth. Thousands of informers were recruited and handled outside any legal framework, authorised to lie, collude, and kill. Publicly, ministers spoke of the rule of law. Privately, the State crossed its own red lines.

Supporters claim Walker’s revolution saved lives and forced the IRA towards politics, helping pave the way to the Good Friday Agreement. Critics argue it licensed murder, subverted justice, and corrupted policing beyond repair. As one damning note to Tony Blair put ‘The State is assassinating people.’

Primed with new and important revelations, this meticulously researched book is the inside story of the decades-long struggle to expose that truth - an attritional battle between detectives, lawyers, and a powerful ‘Securocracy’ determined to protect its secrets. From shoot-to-kill and collusion inquiries to Operation Kenova and the Stakeknife scandal, it reveals how the State has so doggedly fought to control the narrative, silence scrutiny, and preserve its legacy, whatever the cost.

Genres: History

352 pages, Paperback

Published July 30, 2026

Reviews

[Mervyn Whyte · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a meticulously researched, brilliantly written, and courageous book about collusion between the British intelligence services and paramilitary groups during the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

John Ware's attention to detail is extraordinary, and his investigative work is genuinely forensic. He's interviewed many of the key figures involved, and the extensive endnotes alone give a sense of just how exhaustive his research has been. The picture that emerges is, at times, jaw-dropping.

Ware lays out compelling evidence of how elements within the intelligence services assisted loyalist paramilitary groups by providing information that helped them target republicans. He also explores cases where agents allegedly encouraged paramilitaries to commit crimes, while handlers stood back as torture and murder took place. At the same time, with well-placed informants inside the IRA, the security services had remarkable insight into republican activity, while some agents were allegedly involved in the killing of republican figures such as Pat Finucane.

What impressed me most, though, was Ware's fairness. This isn't a one-sided polemic. He repeatedly acknowledges the impossible position intelligence officers often found themselves in: the difficulty of gathering high-quality intelligence without compromising agents, and the reality that preventing every crime could have exposed valuable sources and ended intelligence operations altogether. He doesn't excuse wrongdoing, but he does present the moral complexities involved.

This isn't an easy book to read. Some of the accounts are deeply distressing, and the final chapters become quite dense, drawing heavily on court cases, official inquiries, and commissions. It demands concentration.

It's not a comfortable read, but it's an important one. Whatever your views on the Troubles, it's hard to come away without a deeper appreciation of just how murky, morally complex, and consequential the covert war really was.

[Conor Mcvarnock · Rating 4 out of 5]

The dirty and bleak face of collusion. Goes deep on both Brian Nelson and Freddie Scappaticci and uses them as a window into what actually happened here and the subsequent investigations and how the state continually covered its back. To come to terms with the past we need a full reckoning and this work is part of that.

And anyone who sincerely believes that the Stevens Inquiry evidence room fire was an accident has to be a compete moron.