John Coulter

Written By: John Coulter

Published: June 15, 2014 Last modified: June 11, 2014

John Coulter

Written By: John Coulter

Published: June 1, 2014 Last modified: May 28, 2014

William Ennis is a 34 year old Progressive Unionist Party activist–part time student living in East Belfast.

Fifty questions for big-house unionists.

1. Is it still okay to ask constituents to pay for £300.00 pens via expense claims?
2. Why aren’t the UUP and DUP one party?  They are politically identical!
3. Why do you want an economic United Ireland with your desire for a 10% corporate tax rate?
4. Why do you want a United Ireland on the grounds of equal marriage?
5. Why did you distribute 40,000 leaflets concerning the Belfast City Hall flag and then abandon those who wanted to protest regarding the same issue?
6. Why don’t you make your position clear on the NHS?  Do you want it sold off or saved?
7. Why do you discriminate against homosexual Northern Irish men by denying them the right to give blood when those who live in England, Scotland and Wales can?
8. Why do you support a system of academic selection at the age of eleven which so obviously fails the working class children of Northern Ireland (particularly ones of Protestant background)?
9. Do you think it is okay for a business in administration to be given public sector contracts whilst others are keen for such work?
10. Do you think those responsible for historic discrimination against Catholics in terms of housing and jobs should point out more often that it was not the fault of working class Protestants?
11. Why the assumption that every Unionist is a right-wing Christian?
12. Why the eagerness to rubber stamp welfare cuts at the assembly knowing it will induce poverty amongst a great many Northern Irish people?
13. Why attempt to score political points over other Unionist parties on the grounds of their communication with paramilitary prisoners when both the UUP and DUP have fielded such people as candidates?
14. Why don’t you support the Loyalist protest movement unless there it involves platform and cameras?
15. Why don’t you speak out against racism more often?
16. Why don’t you speak out against homophobia more often?
17. Why don’t you speak out against the tax avoidance of multi-national companies?
18. Do you support the Trident missile system?  If you don’t, why not say so?  If you do, justify it?
19. Why, following big-house unionisms mass rally’s of the conflict era when young Protestant men and boys where fired up toward paramilitarism and ended up in prison, didn’t you support them and their families?
20. Why do big house unionists tend to be anti-devolution right up to the point were the biggest office might be theirs?
21. Why the assumption that every Unionist is heterosexual?
22. Why the assumption that every Unionist is to the right of the political spectrum?
23. How many of your positions are yours, as opposed to merely Sinn Fein’s in converse?
24. Nationalists seem to score many political victories.  To what degree is this the fault of elected Unionists?
25. Why is it that only when only a Loyalist gains media popularity are you happy to refer to him/her as a “Unionist”?
26. Why do DUP politicians scold other Unionist parties for “splitting the unionist vote” when the DUP invented the practice?
27. Why so quiet on the issue of low incomes?
28. Why so quiet on the issue of brown-field eyesore sights?  Are you friends with their neglectful corporate owners?
29. Do you support super-grass trials?  If so, why, given their capacity for corruption?  If not, why weren’t you more vocal when it was Catholics they were used to target?
30. How does one go about acquiring a ransom strip of land for a fiver?
31.  Why do you place emphasis upon who is First Minister and who is Deputy First minister when the two roles are functionally and legally identical?  Is it to cling on to a cheap protestant supremacist vote by implying a unionist being FM is some sort of victory?  Wouldn’t it make more sense to address both offices as Co-First minister?
32. Why have big house unionists not fought for full implementation of the Armed Forces Covenant with the same determination they had in sending young men and women to war in the first place?
33. Do you think it is okay to say “the party comes first”?
34. Why do you complain that there should be an opposition at Stormont when no-one is preventing your party/parties from simply withdrawing from government and forming one?
35. Why do you want the number of Stormont MLA’s reduced on grounds of cost yet support an 11% pay rise for them?
36. Why the reluctance to accept that the resolution to the conflict by sharing government was first explored in a document by Loyalist prisoners as far back as the 1970’s (it was called shared responsibility)?
37. Why the default objection to the Irish language when the Queen herself clearly enjoys using it?
38. When parties which claim to be “other” or “non-tribal” score political capital by mocking, belittling or scapegoating the Loyalist protest movement, why don’t you challenge them?
39. If they oppose the Parades Commission on the grounds of its unaccountability due to it’s not being elected why do big house unionists accept peerages?
40. How many factories have you brought to your area?
41. Would you support a rise in the minimum wage?
42.  If you are Euro-sceptic why take a seat in the European parliament?  Wouldn’t it make more of a statement to abstain and distribute the large salary among charity and community projects in your area?
43. Why did you not support one man one vote in the 60’s?
44. If a party which condemned paramilitarism used a paramilitary group to put up its election posters, would you consider this hypocritical?
45. Why does big-house unionist MP’s often claim so many expenses?  Even by Westminster standards…
46. Why do you not encourage working class unionists to join trades unions?
47. Name one industry you have saved?
48. Do you think it should take a full protest movement to convince a big-house unionist party that the unionist people did not want the proposed development at the Maze?
49. Why have there been so few social housing projects?
50. Why are only Irish Nationalist parties in the assembly batting for the poor?

I only intended to write ten!

DR JOHN COULTER, an author and journalist from a Unionist background, has just published a new e-book on a non-violent, pro-Christian Irish Republican ideology.

Entitled ‘An Saise Glas (The Green Sash): The Road to National Republicanism, the launch of the e-book has been timed to coincide with traditional Republican commemorations of the Easter Rising.

Dr Coulter openly styles himself as “an unrepentant Radical Right-wing Unionist” and while he has been in journalism since 1978, he has latterly been best known as a controversial columnist with the Irish Daily Star.

Dr Coulter, 54, is the son of the Rev Dr Robert Coulter MBE. His father – an Irish Presbyterian Minister and leading Orange chaplain – was an Ulster Unionist MLA for North Antrim for 13 years.

Dr Coulter said: “During the Troubles, I reported on the deaths of numerous people murdered by republican terrorists. But it was the murder of my friend Constable Steve Carroll in March 2009 which prompted me to write a new non-violent ideology for Republicanism.

“An Saise Glas has been a four-year journey and I am openly writing this e-book as an outsider looking in. I hope my e-book will prompt discussion among Republicans as to how they take their ideology forward, and also among Unionists as to how they inter-act with Republicans.

“I also seek to guide Republicanism away from the Godless Marxism which seems to have steadily gripped the ideology since the days of James Connolly and the 1916 Rising.

“The recent scandals involving convicted paedophile priests have driven a wedge between the Catholic Church hierarchy and Republicanism. My new ideology of National Republicanism seeks to re-introduce the Biblical teachings of Jesus Christ, especially the Beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount, into Republican thinking.

“The e-book also examines Republicanism’s relations with the European Union, the Unionist community, coping with its violent past, and international relations,” said Dr Coulter.

Dr Coulter began his journalism career with his local weekly papers in his home town of Ballymena. After graduation from Coleraine University, he became a freelance journalist with the BBC before joining the staff of the News Letter where he became Education and Religious Affairs Correspondent.

He has also worked as a deputy editor and editor of local weekly titles and as a public relations director, and latterly in journalist training. He is married with two sons, and is a member of Maghaberry Elim Church in Co Antrim.

Here’s the link to Amazon Kindle:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/An-Saise-Glas-National-Republicanism-ebook/dp/B00JRVIQ5Y/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1397813806&sr=8-1&keywords=dr+john+coulter

John Coulter

Written By: John Coulter

Published: April 20, 2014 Last modified: April 16, 2014

Recently, there has been a steady increase in Loyalist prisoners being refused access to Bush House Separated landings by the Northern Ireland Office – NIO.  We believe these Loyalist prisoners have a right to be located in Bush House either through being associated with or supporters of an organization or due to the fact they are incarcerated for political action in support of Loyalism. Read more »

There is nothing Loyal about racism

The first letter I ever had published was in the Newsletter.  In it I questioned the need to burn the flags of other countries on our 11^th night bonfire celebrations.  I questioned whether or not the time had come to phase out practices which where much more understandable during the violent conflict than in the more politicised current one.  In all honesty, I would still like to see that happen, but another development has alarmed me since.  One I consider to be much more serious.  Racist attacks against the immigrant community are by no means exclusive to Loyalist areas of Ulster, but they do happen here and there is no excuse for leaving them unchallenged.

The Loyalist protest movement, (which retains an impressive head of steam even yet) mobilised with gusto in the wake of the SF/APNI/SDLP attack on the Union flag of Belfast city hall.  Like most Loyalists I attended these protests.  What alarmed me was the flagrant political aggression of the far right.  In many ways, when leadership was not apparent, the BNP and like minded groups had no compunction about trying to claim this movement as its own, if only in a superficial way.

Fascism makes my skin crawl.  Racism does too, and it does so not despite my Loyalism, but because of it.

The degree to which Republicans leap gleefully into spinning this problem to its full propagandistic value is one of my buttons, but it is not the only reason I have decided to write this article.  I have decided to write this article because racism is as harmful a social cancer to my community as it would be to any other.

I would like to address the unfortunate (perceived) association between Ulster Loyalism and British Nationalism.  Put bluntly, I believe it to be misleading at best and outright absurd at worst. I think it happens due to the fact that the two movements share symbols such as the Union flag.  I don’t do Nationalism.  Not Irish, British, white, Scottish, Ulster or any other kind.  Nationalism to me is a tool for those who wish to divide.  I can’t bring myself to apportion value to a human being on the basis of which lump of rock they may or may not have been born upon.  I prefer citizenship, political union, tolerance, equality, and the resolve to help others where these things are denied because these are the values which the Principles of Loyalism encourages us to embrace.  When those on the (far) right behave in an ultra-nationalist way under the impression that it is Loyalist behaviour, they are mistaken.

“Civil and religious liberty are natural and fundamental rights that must be promoted and defended by all who claim the title of Loyalist” (From Principle 2 of Billy Mitchell’s Principles of Loyalism Document)

Nationalism is about drawing a line around a group of people and saying ‘this is us!  Everyone else is them’.  This is inconsistent with cultural Loyalism and political Unionism as ours is a United Kingdom.

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland; the clue is in the title.  It’s a political Union with multiple nations, countless cultures and a rainbow of peoples.  It is a Democracy which does not blandly conscript its citizens into one single identity, nationality or stereotype.  To claim a person is not British or is some how less British on the grounds of their skin colour or first language is a vile wrongdoing.  If you consider the immigration or political systems to be wrong, then address this as you see fit with your vote and your right to campaign politically.

Politics is now the battlefield, and every vote will count as we endeavour to bring representation to our people and security to the Loyalist culture (and every other).  Acts of racism claimed falsely as acts of Loyalism is manna from heaven for those who would have our country expelled from the United Kingdom.  How could a Chinese person with an emerging interest in Ulster’s history pursue her studies of Carson and Craig toward a Loyalist path when her community is being hounded with racial slurs by those who claim affection for Northern Irelands Britishness?  Why should such a voter be pushed away from learning of David Ervine’s journey from prison to politics?  Why should an African student, in Northern Ireland to study, be denied full participation in the song, dance and craic of the mini-twelfth?  Why should a young couple from Eastern Europe just settling in Belfast not be invited to bring their children to watch the 11^th night Bonfire?  Why should a person from Pakistan not receive an invite from his neighbours to hear the remarkable passion of the Lambeg drums on the 12^th of July?

If you allow the ill-conceived mindset that every Loyalist must be Christian, White, heterosexual, and born in Ulster to stagnate your mind, then you are surrendering Northern Ireland by ignorance as these potential Unionists just may hold the votes to secure your grand-children’s British citizenship.

Many of our community’s problems stem from isolation, but this is not entirely our fault.  The conflict drove Ulster’s peoples into isolationist positions, particularly the working class.  But this need not be the case any longer.  Tolerance of racism will create and perpetuate a cycle of isolationism.  Streets of people adjacent to streets of other people with all the same problems yet no predilection to strategise together.  It is not because of the Polish family down the street that you have to wait on medical treatment, it is because funding is diverted from hospitals to maintain huge salaries in the financial sector.  It is not because of the Chinese community that there is insufficient housing; it is because the Tory Government have promised private landlords they won’t build social housing in order to keep private rents inflated.  It is not a disgrace that foreign born workers work in Northern Ireland for low wages, it’s a disgrace any of us do!

Our blaming those who live nearby because they look or sound different is a key strategy of those in charge who couldn’t care less about any of us.  Every minute a young Loyalist blames the Polish population in Northern Ireland for his inability to find employment is a minute that young Loyalist lets those who really are responsible off the hook.  Businesses can now quite easily gain free labour through government “work experience” programmes and so have no incentive to employ people on a living wage.  Our government and others turn a blind eye to barbaric working conditions in third world countries and so mass manufacturing operations now don’t exist in countries such as ours.  Even the brightest children who succeed in school will be culled by huge tuition fees unless their parents can afford to support them well into adulthood, and if they can they are unlikely to also be able to support them through a no-pay internship which is par for the course toward a high flying professional career.   There are obvious reasons for our lack of employment opportunities, but none that will be solved by participation in, or tolerance of racism.

“An equal society is one in which all members have access to similar resources and opportunities and in which they all value each other for their common humanity.” (From Principle 4 of Billy Mitchell’s Principles of Loyalism Document)

In a recent debate with a Republican twitter friend I raised issue with his persistent use of the word “Brit”.  To me, it is a piece of conflict rhetoric with no place in this juncture of our history.  For the record, I know this man not to be a bigot of any kind, but I do consider this term to be a bigoted one.  How is “Brits out” for example not bigoted, I am British, and I was born here!  Why would anyone else who was born here want me thrown out?  I consider it a racist term, but the fact is that the racism of the British far right and specifically its apparent partnership with strands of individuals who claim to be Loyalists greatly inhibits my freedom to attack the bigoted behaviour of others.  We need to address this.  The sooner Loyalism challenges bigotry in a comprehensive way, the sooner we can challenge the bigotry of others.

I frequently say that non-Loyalists have nothing to fear from genuine Loyalism.  Let’s together set out to prove it.

Let’s be British.

Why there will not be a truth recovery process.

“Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth”. Marcus Aurelius

Much has been made recently about the Haass talks.  I had no such expectations this time in contrast to the Good Friday agreement. The politicians cannot agree. I am with some of the Unionists in not letting the Union flag be debased or devalued. One element that still has to be resolved is ‘the Past’. I was convicted in the ‘70s of numerous terrorist offences and I was given Special Category status recognising the particular context and background to the serious violence that was happening in our country.  

I think there will not be a truth commission/recovery process for the following reasons. Firstly such a process cannot operate in N.Ireland because there has been no clear winner. The situations where truth recovery has worked has been where there was a clear winner, such as South Africa.

Secondly, there is no immunity for ex combatants.(Does that include British soldiers and RUC men?) What good is limited immunity? What rational person would say ‘I will go and tell what I know  only to have that later come back and convict me  in a court of law?  Trust is  major element of the truth process and  I think its fair to say that that isn’t there. And could anyone envisage the day when an British Intelligence member would publically say , yes we were involved in bombing the capital of a neighbouring country that resulted in men, women and children being killed?

Thirdly there has been the most acute discrimination and vilification of loyalist ex-prisoners both from the statutory bodies and sadly the unionist community.  Republican ex-prisoners have the political power of Sinn Fein to protect them and their families. Disrespect and disdain has been actively shown from some unionist politicians to loyalist ex-prisoners who have cut their links with their respective groups, have raised families and tried to lead normal constructive lives. Time and time again there are those who will never let the past be the past.

Fourthly and more worryingly are the unaccountable agencies who agitate and character assassinate- the gutter press. I can imagine certain so called journalists rubbing their hands with glee as a truth commission would unearth facts that they would take and use, manipulate, sensationalise and exaggerate without redress. The process would be a farce.  If our gutter press can show suicide victims hanging on their front page and interview paramilitary touts who then turn up dead,  then they will think what they would  when honest  disclosures are made to a truth process. And on the same line if loyalists where honest in such a process would they then become targets for the dissidents?

Fifthly and most important would be the families of any ex combatant and I include security forces. If a truth recovery names people,  then what about protection for their current wives, partners,  children and in many cases grandchildren.   Would such innocent people become collateral damage? How their lives would be impacted?

If a truth recovery process did take place, what about the people who set up the circumstances that led to the Troubles? The politicians who did carry out prejudice and discrimination in a blatant way? Would they be called to account? Whoever asks about the ‘great and the powerful’   before the Troubles came?  What of their actions and behaviour?  I was a teenager in 1970 caught up in a melee of violence, fear and hate. I could have had a far better life without the Troubles. Will anyone hold their hand up to such a drastic failure to build a decent life for us? And by us I mean ALL the children of that time. Or is this a grand PR exercise to heap all the blame on the bad paramilitaries and divert attention from certain other sectors.

Finally and possibly the biggest stumbling block—-Would  elements of our society (both sides) accept the fact that some paramilitaries were also victims of the Troubles. Not all paramilitaries where victims. Many young Prods and Catholics joined because something happened to their family members. Will this be recognised?

At the minute I think there will be no truth recovery process because of the complexity of the issue. Because of party politics that will be played out.   Because of the spotlight that would be put on the security forces.  Could the public, both here and mainland, really cope with the truth? There won’t be a truth process because to many want to see the world from their perspective rather than get at the truth.

Jeff

It is with regret that we mourn the sad passing of our friend and comrade Alec Smyth.  Alec passed away in hospital in the early hours of December 18th.

Alec was a character and never changed.  He died the way he lived – challenging authority with his swift remarks and biting wit.  I can remember one day the governor coming to Alec to ask him did he want a job in the aviary to get him out of his cell and some fresh air, to which Alec retorted “If I want some fresh air I’ll open a window, now take yourself off”.

Most of the lads in here can remember a similar story or two about Alec.  We can all recall New Year’s Eve (2012) when we were in dispute with the prison authorities and refusing to lock up.  The SO with his staff team came in to individually call us for lock up and subsequent charge when we refused.  Not waiting to be addressed, instead Alec accosted the SO, grabbed him by the elbow, ushered him to one side and says “would you mind being our hostage?”.  With an adamant “No” from the officer Alec quipped “I’ll take that as a refusal shall I!”.  With all of us ‘in stitches’ he had successfully diffused the tension and matters were resolved peacefully.

Again, it is with sadness that we are even talking about the passing of Alec.  He certainly was a character and a ‘one off’ and is missed and fondly remembered by everyone in Loyalist Bush House.  We extend our sympathy to Ruby, Heather, Dougie and the family circle – our thoughts and prayers are with you all.

S. Brown

(John Coulter, Irish Daily Star)

Don’t become a Haass-Been in 2014; instead, follow the Hungarian model and convert the Maze Shrine into a Museum of Terror.

Forget the blame game and the political spin. Every dog in the street knew that if the Executive parties could not reach an agreement on flags, parades and the past by last Halloween, the Ricky Haass talks were doomed.

What party in its right mind a matter of months before two major elections is going to agree to a series of concessions and compromises?

May’s European and new super council polls will be the most crucial since the 1998 Assembly election which gave the fledgling Stormont a distinctively pro-Agreement flavour.

The Shinners will go into the poll in a clearly better position than Robbo’s Dupes. Anyone who believes Big Al’s Stoops can overhaul Sinn Féin’s lead in the nationalist community is living in cloud cuckoo land.

Reality pill number one for the Stoops. Their Euro candidate wee Alex Attwood hasn’t a snowball’s chance in Hell of snatching back the current seat held by Shinner convicted ex-terrorist Martina Anderson.

To remain a party of significance, the SDLP should adopt the policy of popular Mid Ulster MLA Patsy McGlone and focus on the rural middle class Catholic vote.

In the Unionist camp, Robbo needs to box clever to see off the range of assorted fringe parties all claiming to defend the Union.

Robbo certainly will not want to lead his party into the same electoral meltdown as befell former First Minister David Trimble in the 2003 Stormont and 2005 Westminster polls when the DUP under Big Paisley overthrew more than 70 years of Ulster Unionist domination.

Leaks coming out of the Haass talks confirm that present UUP boss Mikey Nesbitt was spot on when he said the Executive parties were at 80 to 90% at hammering out a workable Haass deal.

The final 10% which proved to be the ultimate stumbling block was how the overall package could be sold by the parties to their respective electorates. Which party would own up to blinking first and agreeing concessions?

Given the dramatic Maze jail U-turn, Robbo clearly does not want to hear the jibe that he leads the Doubtful Unionist Party because no one in Unionism knows where it stands.

So, bin the seven Haass documents and here’s the Coulter One document to consider. Let’s start with the Maze Shrine. It should be developed along the lines of the impressive Museum of Terror which has a prime location in the Hungarian capital, Budapest.

The Hungarians have the dubious honour of having lost every war they participated in during the 20th century, costing tens of thousands of lives.

Yet they have no fear of showing off a multi-storey building dedicated to the various conflicts which ravaged the country. Candles and photos of dead loved ones surround the building.

Having visited the Museum of Terror as part of a journalistic trip, I was taken on a highly emotional journey detailing the horrors of the Nazis, the slaughter of Stalin, and the turmoil of the failed 1956 Uprising.

Any visitor, of whatever nationality, is left in no doubt about the suffering of the Hungarian people. Such a Museum of Terror pulled no punches about the depth of that suffering and the real meaning of the word ‘victims’.

Budapest’s Museum of Terror even had cells where people were tortured, died or were executed during the nation’s bloody history, so a restored H Block or prison hospital wing at the Maze Shrine for Ireland is a Sunday School picnic project.

Just as the MLAs were shipped off to Nelson Mandela’s South Africa to kick-start the peace process, my Coulter One document recommends all Assembly members go to the Museum of Terror and let’s once again kick-start the Maze Shrine initiative.

January 7, 2014________________

This article appeared in the January 6, 2014 edition of the Irish Daily Star.