"[4][7] The mindset influenced the British government's strategy for dealing with Northern Irish terrorism: to reduce the violence to the point that most people were not impacted as they went about their daily lives.
[7][8] According to Brewer's Dictionary of Irish Phrase & Fable, the idea of an acceptable level of violence amounted to "implicit toleration of death and destruction", even of terrorist attacks in Great Britain.
[10] According to Colin Knox, defining what is an "acceptable level of violence" in post-ceasefire Northern Ireland, and what constitutes a violation of the ceasefire, "has caused considerable political controversy".
[12] A 2018 article in The Irish Times suggested that the 158 people killed since the Good Friday Agreement were considered acceptable losses—although "no one wishes to use the term 'acceptable level of violence'"—because they come from working-class neighbourhoods.
[14] In a 2010 speech at Oxford, Hugh Orde, recently chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, discussed the threat of the dissident Irish republican campaign.
[15] A Belfast Telegraph editorial described it as an unacceptable gaffe which "give[s] succour to terrorists" and argued that "for the vast majority of people there is no acceptable level of violence".