‘look we tried it and it did not work and it’s not going work this time either’

| Readers 20

The Guardian report of comments by the de facto leader of the ‘good’ UDA, Jackie McDonald, contains a significant line.  From the report

The UDA leader also expressed some sympathy for mainstream republicans in Sinn Féin in terms of facing up to the dissident threat. He pledged that the UDA would continue to work with Sinn Féin on sectarian flashpoints to defuse communal tensions in the 2011 loyalist marching season. “I know that it’s a Catch 22 for republicans. It’s hard for them to police the dissidents. They can’t be big brother to the dissidents. But the mainstream republicans do need to keep saying to the dissidents that ‘look we tried it and it did not work and it’s not going work this time either’.

Significant, as we begin to see evidence of a return of the militants, because that’s not what they have been saying.

Is it?

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