The emphasis so far has been upon how sustained inclusion within a set of credible institutions incentivised and extracted republican moderation. This raises the necessary question of what was the role of the British state in this process, given that it largely defined the space in which political competition occurred. Many existing studies assume that British policy contributed to republican moderation by co-opting republicans and sucking them in to mainstream politics. This may have been part of their final strategy in the formal peace process, but British policy across the long-term conflict as a whole was certainly not this coherent or clearly focused around the goal of co-option. In fact, even during the formal peace process John Chilcot rejected the idea that the British were seeking to enmesh republicans, stating instead that it was about finding a way forward for both sides. It has also been argued that the process of dialogue itself and the way the British crafted this was crucial. But such emphases neglect the wider context in which dialogue occurred and the long-term nature of republican moderation, which began long before the formal talks that led to the peace process.

A better understanding of British policy is to appreciate how it enabled republican moderation through two key conditions. Firstly, it focused on creating a credible institutional framework for political competition in Northern Ireland that reduced the risks of participation for all sides. Secondly, British policy was highly tolerant of the emergence of Irish republicanism as a political force and did not seek to suppress it, even while imposing very robust anti-terrorist legislation against the IRA. A credible institutional framework and tolerance of republicanism as a political force allowed republicans to commit to a moderate path knowing that the institutional framework offered a genuine opportunity to exercise power without inherently favouring one side over the other in advance. In other words, British policy enabled moderation through inclusion to occur and it is doubtful that decisions to moderate by republican elites at critical junctures would have become binding in the absence of these factors.