Drumcree and the limits of law and people power…

Bridgewater is a Slugger reader from Belfast.

At the risk of losing half the readership immediately, I should disclose at the outset I am from the nationalist community. Like the vast majority of that community, my sympathies lie with the Garvaghy Road residents. That frames my outlook in this blog piece.

Now, with the disclaimer out of the way…

Is anyone enjoying Parade Wars Episode 2: The Orange Order Strikes Back? It is a grim, but gripping, sequel. At least we can take some solace that it is less of a war movie this time, and more of a courtroom and political thriller, for the time being at least.

There is plenty of blame and hypocrisy to go around in the current dispute.

The local Orange lodge picked this legal fight, egged on by their legal advisor and prominent loyalist activist Jamie Bryson. They have been backed to the hilt by local DUP representatives and by hardline unionists across Northern Ireland. They have framed the new notification of a slimmed down parade for as ‘neighbourly’, and ‘more than reasonable’. They have also said local residents have ‘nothing to fear’ from the parade.

The faux sincerity is nauseating. It is apparent to anyone paying a modicum of attention that the local Orange lodge, and especially Bryson and the political representatives who back them, do not particularly care for the 4500 or so nationalist residents of the Garvaghy Road area. While their desire to use the traditional route is valid and understandable, they have been disingenuous and hypocritical throughout this dispute.

Firstly, there has never been an apology for, or acknowledgment of, the abysmal behaviour of the lodge and its supporters in the 1990s and early 2000s. Local Unionist MLA Doug Beattie, a supposed moderate, asked on social media, ‘what trauma?’ residents would experience if the march proceeded. An inability or unwillingness to even acknowledge the valid feelings of neighbours and constituents, that they are aggrieved and traumatised by the organisation proposing this parade in a dispute that killed 21 people, is a cornerstone of the unionist approach. These feelings are epitomised by Marie-Therese Murray, a Garvaghy Road resident who’s son, Darren, was killed during the dispute in the 1996. Understandably, she is deeply traumatised and does not want the march to go ahead down the Garvaghy Road, and has been protesting in recent days.

Any such acknowledgement of residents’ deeply held feelings would lead to the conclusion that the human costs of pursuing the traditional route  are not worth it, and that taking the Corcrain Road home is the moral approach. No one is preventing the Lodge from marching home from church, and it is a pernicious lie to say otherwise.

The Lodge, its supporters and political representatives, have also been deeply hypocritical in handling the dispute. We are told that they will only use their traditional route, yet they quietly accept being re-routed away from Obins Street, avoiding a far messier standoff near Portadown town centre. We are told that they are being neighbourly, but that a parade that was delayed in July must go ahead now, denying residents a better opportunity to secure a judicial review, and that residents are thugs and a rabble for engaging in peaceful protest. We are told that this decision is sacrosanct, when the Lodge have never respected or accepted previous Parades Commission determinations. For decades, they have held symbolic protest parades trying to get down Drumcree Hill, only to be met by police lines. It sticks in the craw that those who have broken Parades Commission determinations for decades now lecture others on their inviolability.

Legally, the Lodge and Bryson have played a very canny game, and they have now achieved their goal. Their contention is that the decision to reroute their parade away from the Garvaghy Road is an unlawful breach of their rights to freedom of expression and assembly. It is true that there is a high bar for the state to interfere in those rights. But the substantive argument has not been adjudicated in court. They won on procedural grounds at the first judicial review. The result of the second judicial review in the early hours of Sunday morning, with the limited evidence available to the court given the time constraints, was to defer to the judgement of the Parades Commission.

There may have been a legal strategy, but it is very unclear if there was a political strategy. A perfect storm of an impending election, tough budgetary choices, and now this dispute, has put the Executive and wider community relations at risk. And for what? The Orange Order wins the right to get their banner home via the traditional route, in a far smaller parade than they want, at a very high political cost for unionism. This is reigniting a toxic dispute that will rear its head every July for years to come.

Gavin Robinson’s sabre has now been drawn and is rattling in the direction of the Sinn Féin, the police, and power-sharing, but his language has been distinctly more moderate throughout, and he has not been pictured recently with Bryson or at Drumcree. However, just as Bryson has led Lockhart and Buckley into dangerous political waters, they in turn are pulling Robinson into the whirlpool of ever worsening political relationships and governmental collapse. There is no long term gain for unionism in this path. Robinson knows this, and will take every measure short of collapsing the Executive, until that becomes politically unsustainable for the party he leads.

The UUP seems to have avoided an infection through social distancing. It is a smart move by Jon Burrows and puts clear water between the party and their unionist opponents. Burrows recognises that the path pursued by the DUP and TUV is a hiding to nothing but direct rule, and the London imposed austerity that comes with it. He has called for legal consequences for those involved in the protest, supports the police, and for a peaceful resolution. It is a clear-sighted and realistic position, although whether the UUP can reap electoral rewards (particularly in Upper Bann) remains to be seen.

On the other side, the GRRC, supported by all of northern political nationalism, has engaged in peaceful, but almost certainly illegal, protest. Residents want to be left alone, in peace.

Here comes the tricky bit for nationalists. I really don’t like to admit it, but the Orange Order and Jamie Bryson won on this occasion, playing by the rules that we all signed up to. This is a very sore loss, but we cannot be sore losers.

As painful a pill as it is to swallow, the Orange Order should have marched down the Garvaghy Road on Sunday. A large, dignified protest could have been organised to show opposition. Blocking the route in current circumstances, with a parade that is, in itself, tiny and relatively undisruptive, is fundamentally wrong. It is undemocratic and it is unfair. Unionists and the Orange Order have a legitimate grievance. They have gained some of the moral high ground, as well as having the legal high ground.

Arguments used by residents in the nineties and earlier noughties about the police being unwilling to enforce the rule of law against sheer numbers of people opposed to it are, with justification, being deployed against them.

On a practical level this protest is not sustainable. There will be natural attrition; protestors will dwindle, and in the wee hours police could very easily move a handful of protestors out of the way and get the parade down the road, humiliating residents in the process.

There will also be a sting in the tail for local residents when the police come knocking and charging people for participating in an unnotified parade related protest. This is a crime carrying a fine of up to £5000, a six month prison sentence, or both. A criminal conviction and hefty fine will affect lives and livelihoods. While any conviction will be a badge of honour for politicians and activists, the material impact on ordinary residents will be disproportionate. I doubt leaders have levelled with residents about the potential consequences of joining the protest.

This all points to short sighted leadership of the GRRC and political nationalism. There was a failure to realise the risk of the original judicial review. There was a complacent assumption that the Parades Commission would continue to re-route the parade. There was a poor strategic decision when deciding to block the parade on Sunday morning.

We can see the dawning realisation about the hole residents are in. Bréandan Mac Cionnath, dubbed by Tony Blair as the most unreasonable man in the world, is suddenly all in favour of international mediation, having been set against it previously. Thankfully, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff have their hands full with Ukraine and Gaza at the moment.

Residents need a deal that minimises the impact of this and future parades. An offer they can live with should be put on the table, and quickly. Worryingly, political leaders do not appear to have done the groundwork necessary to prepare residents for compromise.

Portadown’s demographics have rapidly changed. As of 2021, it is 47% Protestant and 40% Catholic. Locals must now learn to live and accommodate each other. This dispute has had deadly consequences before, and raising the stakes further could put us firmly in that territory once more.