And so a well-publicised Operation Standstill, consisting of multiple illegal road blockades across the north, ends with rioting in Carrickfergus and Newtownabbey as East Antrim takes the torch from East Belfast. In defiance of party leader, Peter Robinson, at least one DUP elected representative, Derry City councillor Gary Midleton, attended a protest in Derry, thus proving once again that the only ‘chipping away‘ which has occurred throughout the Flag Furore has been of Peter Robinson’s authority as DUP Leader.
But perhaps the defining moment of the entire protest was captured by a BBC Radio Ulster journalist, who recorded the moment when a pensioner on his way to hospital to visit his terminally ill wife confronted loyalist protesters blocking his path. His pleas to be allowed to pass were met with jeers and a rendition of ‘Cheerio’ by the assembled mob.
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