{"id":1247,"date":"2012-11-19T10:12:45","date_gmt":"2012-11-19T10:12:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.longkeshinsideout.co.uk\/?p=1247"},"modified":"2012-11-19T10:12:45","modified_gmt":"2012-11-19T10:12:45","slug":"should-loyalists-join-mainstream-unionist-parties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.longkeshinsideout.co.uk\/?p=1247","title":{"rendered":"SHOULD LOYALISTS JOIN MAINSTREAM UNIONIST PARTIES?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
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Former Blanket \u00a0 commentator, DR JOHN COULTER, maintains that loyalism must not react \u00a0 violently to the dissident republican terror agenda, but must also re-engage \u00a0 the political process by joining or merging with mainstream Unionist parties.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\u00a0<\/strong>The loyalist community must NEVER, Never, never (to quote \u00a0 a phrase from Ian Paisley senior in 1985) ever play the dissident republican \u00a0 game and return the serve by unleashing a rival dissident loyalist movement.<\/p>\n

The real \u00a0 challenge facing the loyalist community is the need to re-engage politically \u00a0 within mainstream Unionism, not prepare for a new armed conflict with a \u00a0 significant, but unrepresentative, faction of the broad republican family.<\/p>\n

This is not to \u00a0 ignore the fact that the \u2018drip, drip\u2019 method of republican dissidents is \u00a0 becoming an increasing irritation in the Protestant community.<\/p>\n

The murder of \u00a0 prison officer David Black and the desecration of the village war memorial in \u00a0 Glenavy, Co Antrim, has served to test loyalist resolve to the extreme.<\/p>\n

Unlike the \u00a0 Provisional republican movement, the rival dissident republican movement \u00a0 cannot claim widespread support across the majority of working class \u00a0 nationalist heartlands which spawned Provisional Sinn Fein.<\/p>\n

Dissident \u00a0 republicans are largely confined to the Three L\u2019s locations \u2013 Lurgan, \u00a0 Londonderry and the Lower Falls. They have been branded as \u2018traitors\u2019 by \u00a0 Stormont deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness, himself a former senior \u00a0 PIRA commander in Londonderry.<\/p>\n

The republican \u00a0 dissidents face the added barriers of a flow of information to the security \u00a0 forces in Northern Ireland from within the nationalist community, as well as \u00a0 joint security initiatives against dissidents on both sides of the border.<\/p>\n

Unlike the Provo \u00a0 and INLA campaigns during the Troubles, republican terrorists can no longer \u00a0 fully rely on the South of Ireland being a safe haven from which to launch a \u00a0 border campaign, or run to after committing attacks.<\/p>\n

On a more \u00a0 sinister note, from my own interviews with dissident republicans, it is clear \u00a0 that while there are limited pockets of support in Northern Ireland, the \u00a0 dissidents do want to increase their profile in the Republic both in terms of \u00a0 numbers and influence on attacks in Ulster.<\/p>\n

This is \u00a0 especially the case since the death of leading Real IRA commander Alan Ryan \u00a0 in Dublin. It is clear that dissident republicans in the South of Ireland are \u00a0 feeling the pressure of the electoral successes of Provisional Sinn Fein \u00a0 since party president Gerry Adams left his West Belfast Westminster bolthole \u00a0 and became a TD for the Louth constituency.<\/p>\n

In the last Dail \u00a0 general election, the Adams agenda saw Sinn Fein produce one of its best \u00a0 returns since the 1919 General Election when it won the majority of Southern \u00a0 Irish seats when the entire island was part of the British Empire.<\/p>\n

If Adams can keep \u00a0 the Provisional Sinn Fein bandwagon on track, the movement may be in a \u00a0 position after the next Dail poll that it will be seriously knocking on the \u00a0 door of becoming a minority partner in a coalition government in Dublin.<\/p>\n

Imagine how the \u00a0 dissident republican position would become even more isolated with Martin \u00a0 McGuinness as deputy First Minister in Stormont and Gerry Adams as Deputy \u00a0 Prime Minister in the Dail? Essentially, the dissident republican movement is \u00a0 incapable of responding politically.<\/p>\n

Dissident \u00a0 republicans will want to play their hand by developing a so-called Southern \u00a0 Command in the same way as the Provisional IRA operated a Northern and \u00a0 Southern Command terrorist structure.<\/p>\n

This strategy was hinted at in an exclusive \u00a0 interview with a source in the dissident republican faction, Oglaigh na \u00a0 hEireann (ONH).<\/p>\n

Ironically, ONH \u00a0 is not one of the dissident factions which has joined forces to form the \u00a0 so-called New IRA. The New IRA is composed of the Real IRA, Republican Action \u00a0 Against Drugs, and independent republican terrorists. The Continuity IRA has \u00a0 also remained outside of the New IRA fold.<\/p>\n

Terrorists from Southern Ireland \u00a0 seem to be having a greater say in the running of the overall dissident \u00a0 republican movement since the killing earlier of Ryan.<\/p>\n

He was \u201cpretty \u00a0 high up the organisation, a big mover and well thought off by his comrades\u201d, \u00a0 according to my well-placed Northern Ireland source in Oglaigh na hEireann.<\/p>\n

My source – who has given me \u00a0 interviews in the past about ONH activities – was adamant that negative media \u00a0 coverage of 32-year-old Ryan being some kind of gangster \u201ccould not be \u00a0 further from the truth\u201d.<\/p>\n

The source maintains that the \u00a0 former Londonderry-based republican always wanted to use his Real IRA unit to \u00a0 strike at Northern Ireland, and Mr Black\u2019s murder was merely his successors \u00a0 carrying out his wishes.<\/p>\n

The source added: \u201cI knew \u00a0 Alan from when he was 17. He joined the Fianna of Republican Sinn Fein and \u00a0 then went to the Real IRA. He left behind a tight group in North Dublin.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was always well dressed. \u00a0 That was the way he was brought up and it\u2019s not a crime to be well dressed. \u00a0 Everyone who knew him was very impressed by him and saw him as honest and \u00a0 charismatic.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe prison officer was \u00a0 killed out of respect for Alan.\u201d ONH members came to the Republic from the North to give support to the \u00a0 North Dublin Real IRA, the source stressed.<\/p>\n

\u201cRyan was certainly very prominent in the \u00a0 Real IRA and would have had a big say in their strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The source said the murder would act as a \u00a0 \u201cspringboard\u201d to launch dissident republican activity not just in Dublin, but \u00a0 right across the republic, adding that the level of support was seen by the \u00a0 attendance at Ryan\u2019s funeral.<\/p>\n

Asked if there would be reprisals for \u00a0 Ryan\u2019s murder, my source said: \u201cI would be amazed if that did not happen. It \u00a0 is bound to happen. And it may come against the Crown forces.\u201d<\/p>\n

The killing of prison officer Black is \u00a0 more evidence of the dissidents\u2019 drip-drip method of terrorism rather than \u00a0 the Provisionals\u2019 previous long-war sustained strategy.<\/p>\n

The dissident strategy is clearly \u00a0 two-fold. Firstly, embarrass mainstream republicans by proving that a \u00a0 military campaign against Britain and Unionism is still viable, and secondly, \u00a0 try and provoke a violent reaction from a section of loyalism.<\/p>\n

But loyalism must hold the line in its \u00a0 community and not return the serve. Loyalism\u2019s central focus must be to \u00a0 re-engage the two-thirds of working class Protestants who have abandoned the \u00a0 ballot box.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the strategy should be that if \u00a0 mainstream Unionist parties will not come to loyalists, then loyalist should \u00a0 join the mainstream parties \u2013 especially the ruling DUP \u2013 and influence \u00a0 Unionism from within.<\/p>\n

Some bitter medicine which loyalism must \u00a0 swallow is that the Ulster Democratic Party experiment has run its course \u00a0 since Gary McMichael\u2019s days in the Northern Ireland Forum for Political \u00a0 Dialogue, and the Progressive Unionist Party has lost considerable ground \u00a0 since it clinched two MLAs in the 1998 Assembly poll.<\/p>\n

Former UDP councilor Frank McCoubrey has \u00a0 taken the very courageous and wise step of entering mainstream Unionism by \u00a0 joining the DUP. Other elected representatives from loyalist parties should \u00a0 consider likewise.<\/p>\n

The hard reality is that the loyalist \u00a0 working classes can no longer afford to sit about and wait for the mainstream \u00a0 Unionist parties to come to them. Working class Protestants must take the \u00a0 initiative and join mainstream Unionist parties.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, the DUP especially must \u00a0 dismiss any talk coming from working class loyalism as communism under \u00a0 another name. It must confine to the dustbin of history any views that the \u00a0 PUP is some kind of \u2018Shankill Soviet\u2019.<\/p>\n

Whatever view is taken of loyalists \u00a0 joining the DUP or UUP, the key factor is that loyalism must be brought in from \u00a0 the political cold.<\/p>\n

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