State in Denial :

Secret British Army units, mass sectarian screening, propaganda 'dirty tricks', the arming of sectarian killers and a point-blank refusal to outlaw the largest loyalist killer-gang in Northern Ireland, all point to the incontrovertible fact that collaboration did exist between successive British governments and loyalist paramilitaries. Tactics such as curfew and internment were imposed almost exclusively on the nationalist population of Northern Ireland. Based on official British and Irish declassified documents from the 1970s and early 1980s, this book explores the tangled web of relationships between British government ministers, senior civil servants, leading police and military officers, and UDA and UVF paramilitaries. The documents provide evidence of more than a decade of official tolerance, and at times encouragement, of loyalist paramilitaries, leading to horrifying results and prolonging the conflict in Northern Ireland. Yet the authorities in London continue to deny such links. Britain truly is a state in denial. -- Publisher description