Loyalist paramilitaries

Laws against flags on lamp posts are mere gestures unless the unionist parties start championing local people’s interests with the UVF and UDA

Brian Walker on July 3, 2019, 12:53 pm

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Each marching season begins with familiar tensions and flashpoints old and new. They combine in the modest environment of Cantrell Close, back for a third year with the added twist of the Soldier F campaign. Legal action is the knee jerk reaction, superficially attractive until it comes to examining where the law stands and how to enforce it. The civil servants opposed to it needn’t worry; they cannot exercise powers they haven’t got. But is legal action the right response …

“A leadership vacuum” that must be filled

Paul Gosling on May 10, 2019, 7:00 am

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A leadership vacuum is causing harm across Northern Ireland, including in loyalist areas, and contributes to the lure of paramilitaries, warns victims’ campaigner Alan McBride in the latest Forward Together podcast. “I think we probably need to put a lot of investment into areas like East Belfast and the Shankill and other areas to try and improve the leadership potential,” he argues. Alan adds: “As a grassroots working class Protestant loyalist myself, I have a real feel for that community. …

If not loyalists, who else will do this job?

Claire Mitchell on September 16, 2017, 1:34 pm

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I’ve rarely heard such a lack of political sensitivity as Jim Wilson telling Stephen Nolan that, in applying to the British government to be deproscribed, the Red Hand Commando wants their ‘place in the sun’. What a disturbing way to put it. But at the same time, Wilson’s interview on the Nolan Show tells us so much about where loyalism is at in 2017. Still grasping for a political voice, still resentful of their exclusion from big house unionism, still …

Why “Equality under the law” is a prerequisite for a stable, long term and unprocessed peace…

Mick Fealty on October 21, 2015, 1:47 pm

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It’s just too good not to reprint Ed Moloney’s latest headline in its entirity: ‘They Haven’t Gone Away, You Know!’ And That’s Okay With Us, Say Brits… Aside from the dark humour involved, he usefully points back to the IMC report of September 2008. Now with regard to the pressure now mounting on Peter Robinson over a statement he made just prior to that report, this is all very pertinent. Here’s the guts of Robinson’s statement: “There is no purpose for having …

The PSNI’s latest move against the Boston archive is unintelligent

Brian Walker on January 25, 2015, 12:14 pm

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Henry McDonald in the Observer has picked up on the PSNI’s latest incursion into Boston tapes morass. There is a blinkered police logic to this that contradicts the stated expectations of the law officers of the low likelihood of future prosecutions. Pursue the Bloody Sunday paras and give Gerry Adams lousy food in Antrim Police station for a couple of days. If the PSNI go after the Army and the Provos they have to go after the loyalists, don’t …