The Loyalist Communities Council (LCC) is a farce. It always has been. It’s a bunch of (mainly old) men desperately clinging on to maintain a relevance in a society which has long rejected them.
It’s more than embarrassing to watch DUP ministers indulge the fantasies of this group, whose membership organisations have done more to impoverish, wreck and oppress the very communities they purport to represent.
There’s little doubt the loyalist paramilitary groups are fractured - but it’s not good paramilitaries versus bad paramilitaries because such a distinction doesn’t exist.
The ageing leadership are losing their once vice-like grip and the young Turks knee deep in criminality are living in a fools paradise; parasites not patriots.
There would be justifiable anger within unionism if Sinn Féin ministers invited Saoradh to Stormont to discuss policing in the Creggan or social deprivation in Lurgan.
The DUP cannot continue to speak from both sides of its mouth. The continued presence and indulgence of paramilitaries in a peaceful society is a black and white issue. One is either for the rule of law or not.
But then again, the DUP since its foundation has been in a long flirtation with dubious shadowy figures within loyalist paramilitarism. When needed, the latter provided muscle to street demonstrations, which amplified the bigoted and sectarian rants of the former DUP leader, Ian Paisley.
Masked, balaclava-covered and dressed in military garb, loyalist paramilitaries were little more than armed fascist blackshirts.
The notion that loyalist paramilitaries have been demonised is both risible and ridiculous. Victimhood doesn’t sit well on organisations which are experts in victim making. Paisley ‘DUP-ed’ them.
They were the fall guys for his inflammatory remarks and weren’t feted when caught and given lengthy prison sentences.
Belatedly, loyalist representatives such as the late Gusty Spence and David Ervine recognised just how much they had been misled. It’s hard to believe just how gullible loyalist paramilitaries were and for so long. But when the diet served up was a sectarian hate-fest, they readily tucked in.
Working class loyalists are right about the lack of investment and underachievement within their communities. The blame for this lies squarely at the door of the DUP, UUP and other unionist parties
New voices within loyalism are making the same mistakes.
Armed now with a thesaurus and a hankering for a 1950s-style Northern Ireland, they can’t veil their distaste for the democratic process and power-sharing. They oppose the dynamic and reality of change.
Their spokespeople are like Sisyphus, engaged in the fruitless labour of pushing a boulder up a hill, only to end up back where they started. Sisyphus had tried to cheat death, and similarly these tin-pot Craigs and Carsons believe they escape the inevitable demise of Northern Ireland within the UK.
The recent reactions at Stormont to the McMonagle debacle have clearly demonstrated the DUP and UUP have no appetite for adding political pressure on the first minister or Sinn Féin. Stormont will not collapse because it’s the only show in town. If it wasn’t brought down by the tightrope walking and complexities of the Windsor Framework, it certainly won’t be brought down by a clear need for an eyesight test.
Not for the first time are loyalist agitators barking up the wrong tree.
The whole transitioning process has been about lining pockets with public money, securing tenure within loyalist working class areas and buying a way into the political process. There is no legitimacy to this failed tactic and both the Irish and British governments need to reconsider their approach.
Working class loyalists are right about the lack of investment and underachievement within their communities. The blame for this lies squarely at the door of the DUP, UUP and other unionist parties.
The unionist obsession about identity, flags and symbolism over bread and butter issues, aspiration and educational attainment has utterly failed working class loyalists.
How many days a union flag is flown or where to hang a portrait of the royal family won’t lift anyone out of poverty. As John Hume’s father used to say, “You can’t eat a flag.”
