{"id":1321,"date":"2013-01-21T16:28:24","date_gmt":"2013-01-21T16:28:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.longkeshinsideout.co.uk\/?p=1321"},"modified":"2013-01-21T16:28:24","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T16:28:24","slug":"the-ideology-of-new-loyalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.longkeshinsideout.co.uk\/?p=1321","title":{"rendered":"The Ideology of New Loyalism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
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Former Blanket \u00a0 commentator, DR JOHN COULTER, in the first of a series of exclusive articles \u00a0 for Long Kesh Inside Out, outlines his ideology of New Loyalism, which he \u00a0 believes will give the entire Protestant community a fresh and positive \u00a0 political direction.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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While there is much talk about the so-called loyalist \u00a0 revolution which is taking place within the Protestant community, the core \u00a0 challenge to loyalism is that it needs an ideological direction.<\/p>\n

Entire articles \u00a0 can be devoted to the faults of loyalism, the failures of political unionism, \u00a0 and Protestant apathy. We can all list what loyalism opposes, but the \u00a0 Protestant\/Unionist\/Loyalist (PUL) community needs to radically address what \u00a0 it supports and stands for.<\/p>\n

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As someone from a \u00a0 mainstream Irish Presbyterian, Ulster Unionist, Orange background in North \u00a0 Antrim, I can easily document what loyalism is \u2018agin\u2019. Equally, loyalists can \u00a0 easily explain what Irish republicans\u2019 ultimate aspirations are \u2013 a \u00a0 32-county, democratic socialist republic.<\/p>\n

But surely there \u00a0 must be more to loyalist aspirations than merely avoiding the scenario of the \u00a0 long-term republican aspiration of a united Ireland? Loyalists need to ask \u00a0 what they are loyal to, and why? What are the political aspirations of \u00a0 loyalism?<\/p>\n

The Union flag \u00a0 crisis sparked by the so-called pro-Union Alliance Party in Belfast has once \u00a0 more thrown Ulster loyalism into the global media spotlight. There is only \u00a0 one, solitary, democratic way for loyalism to pay the Alliance Party back for \u00a0 its vote in Belfast City Council \u2013 do not give loyalist transfers to \u00a0 Alliance, or vote Alliance \u2018X\u2019 ever again.<\/p>\n

With increasing \u00a0 apathy among pro-Union voters, Alliance has recognised the need to survive \u00a0 politically by shifting its emphasis from being a \u2018small u\u2019 unionist party to \u00a0 becoming a \u2018small n\u2019 nationalist party.<\/p>\n

From Alliance\u2019s \u00a0 point of view, there is a need to attract transfers from middle class \u00a0 Catholic voters of the SDLP and working class republicans of Sinn Fein than \u00a0 from the so-called \u2018Big Two\u2019 unionist parties. Even Stormont First Minister \u00a0 and DUP leader Peter Robinson has recognised that given Protestant voter \u00a0 apathy, he must make the DUP more appealing to the voting Catholic Unionists.<\/p>\n

The vast majority \u00a0 of Alliance\u2019s elected representatives need Unionist transfer voters to win \u00a0 their seats. The polling booth, never the petrol bomb, is the method to \u00a0 ensure a long-term Alliance defeat in forthcoming Stormont, council and \u00a0 Commons polls.<\/p>\n

Practically, \u00a0 loyalism must be asking itself, how does it take the flags protest off the \u00a0 streets? Where does the Unionist Forum and People\u2019s Forum initiatives go now? \u00a0 Tactically, the current PUL community finds itself in exactly the same place \u00a0 which the Catholic community in Ulster and the Afro-Caribbean community in \u00a0 America\u2019s Southern states in the mid to late 1960s.<\/p>\n

There is a real \u00a0 need for loyalists to both register as voters \u2013 and actually follow that up \u00a0 by voting in the vast numbers in the same way they turned out for the two \u00a0 Westminster General Elections when pro-Union candidates took every seat with \u00a0 the exception of Gerry Fitt\u2019s West Belfast stronghold.<\/p>\n

Is being a \u00a0 loyalist two current aspirations \u2013 loyalty to the English Throne being Protestant, \u00a0 and ensuring political Ulster remains in the Union of the United Kingdom? Is \u00a0 the loyalist ideology as it presently stands, therefore, \u2018agin\u2019 anything \u00a0 which threatens either of these two basic aspirations?<\/p>\n

If this is the \u00a0 case, it is not new leaders, a new party, a new direction which loyalism \u00a0 needs, but it requires a new ideology. The ideology of New Loyalism seeks to \u00a0 plug that vacuum.<\/p>\n

It is based on \u00a0 the long-term aspiration that we should take back what is rightfully our\u2019s; \u00a0 the land which was won during the Glorious Revolution of the 1690s when the \u00a0 Williamite campaign set the political foundations for the Protestant \u00a0 Ascendancy across the whole of the island, not just six counties in the North \u00a0 East of Ireland.<\/p>\n

New Loyalism \u00a0 emphasises that the Republic \u2013 not Northern Ireland \u2013 as a political \u00a0 experience has failed. The Republic is financially bankrupt; its greatest \u00a0 export is its people as thousands emigrate to seek work, particularly in \u00a0 Australia.<\/p>\n

Morally and \u00a0 religiously, the Irish Bishops no longer hold any sway over the Southern \u00a0 people because of the Irish Catholic Church has been globally discredited as \u00a0 a result of the clerical abuse scandals.<\/p>\n

The 1998 Good \u00a0 Friday Agreement established a series of British-Irish institutions which covertly \u00a0 give the United Kingdom a practical say in the running of the South. The UK \u00a0 has its biggest influence on the Republic since partition in the 1920s.<\/p>\n

Unionism made a \u00a0 huge mistake in 1985 when the Anglo-Irish Agreement established the Maryfield \u00a0 Secretariat in Belfast. While Unionists tramped the streets of Ulster to \u00a0 protest at what they perceived to be the South having a say in the running of \u00a0 Northern Ireland, it failed to return the serve by establishing a rival \u00a0 Unionist Embassy at Dublin\u2019s Leinster House.<\/p>\n

In the 1980s, the \u00a0 South\u2019s Celtic Tiger economy was only in its infancy. Any supposed gained \u00a0 from Maryfield have been wiped out by the total collapse of that Celtic Tiger \u00a0 and the South\u2019s reliance on European Union handouts to stay financially \u00a0 afloat.<\/p>\n

New Loyalism \u00a0 recognises that Ireland \u2013 north and south \u2013 must and should be a Unionist \u00a0 island. Only by rejoining the Commonwealth can the 26 counties of Southern \u00a0 Ireland avoid the world humiliation of deteriorating into a fifth-rate, \u00a0 African-style banana republic.<\/p>\n

New Loyalism\u2019s \u00a0 agenda and long-term aspiration is to persuade the South to join the \u00a0 influential Commonwealth Parliamentary Association as a first step to full \u00a0 Commonwealth membership. New Loyalism must be to the fore in building a New \u00a0 Union whereby the South comes back into UK membership.<\/p>\n

This year will \u00a0 see many loyalists commemorate the centenary of the campaign against Home \u00a0 Rule in 1913. In that era, \u2018Home Rule Meant Rome Rule\u2019. One hundred years \u00a0 later, the grip of the Irish Catholic Church has been broken with the \u00a0 Protestant-influenced Elim Pentecostal movement being one of the fastest \u00a0 growing denominations in the Republic.<\/p>\n

As well as \u00a0 building a stronger Union with the UK on this island, New Loyalism will also \u00a0 have as its core the maintaining and expanding of Biblical Christianity \u00a0 throughout Ireland as the Christian faith comes under increasing pressure \u00a0 from secularism and pluralism.<\/p>\n

However, this \u00a0 should not be misinterpreted as New Loyalism seeking a return to Hell-fire \u00a0 preachers who influenced so many working class loyalists into actions which \u00a0 resulted in them ending up in jail or the cemetery. Rather, New Loyalism \u00a0 seeks to get Christian churches \u2013 especially in Protestantism \u2013 to re-engage \u00a0 with their flocks, especially in working class areas. New Loyalism will seek \u00a0 to bring true Biblical meaning to the maxim \u2013 For God And Ulster.<\/p>\n

To help with the \u00a0 mobilisation of the PUL community, New Loyalism wants to see the introduction \u00a0 of compulsory voting, as exists in the Commonwealth nation of Australia. \u00a0 Under New Loyalism, citizenship is not about how many cash benefits can be \u00a0 squeezed out of the system, but how a citizen of the British state can \u00a0 actively take part in the political process. Under compulsory voting, every \u00a0 loyalist voter is important.<\/p>\n

New Loyalism will \u00a0 promote the concept of Pride in British Citizenship, whereby to hold a \u00a0 British passport, a citizen will have to swear and Oath of Allegiance to \u00a0 assist the state in whatever way it he\/she can.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, one \u00a0 of the principal aims of New Loyalism will be to restore the concept of unity \u00a0 among the PUL community. The history of that community is littered with \u00a0 failed initiatives which uttered bucketloads of well-spoken, but totally \u00a0 empty rhetoric.<\/p>\n

The long-term \u00a0 aspiration of New Loyalism is to create a single, united political movement \u00a0 to represent all shades of pro-Union, pro-Commonwealth and anti-EU thinking \u00a0 on this island.<\/p>\n

One of the most \u00a0 successful unionist unity organisations in the past half-century was the \u00a0 hardline, Right-wing Vanguard movement. But its fate was sealed the moment it \u00a0 ceased being an influential pressure group and launched itself as a political \u00a0 party, thereby further fragmenting the pro-Union vote.<\/p>\n

The initial aim \u00a0 of New Loyalism\u2019s pressure group, the League of Commonwealth Loyalists, is to \u00a0 mobilise the PUL community into getting on the electoral register and making \u00a0 a pledge to vote in all and future democratic elections.<\/p>\n

The present \u00a0 severe street unrest was caused by the removal of the Union flag from Belfast \u00a0 City Hall from flying 365 days per year. As the ideologist writing New \u00a0 Loyalism, I hope the Good Lord spares me long enough to see the Union and \u00a0 Commonwealth flags flying over Leinster House and Dublin Castle.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t dismiss \u00a0 this aspiration as meaningless and impossible. The PUL community should \u00a0 remember the historic speech by a DUP leader in 1985 which included the \u00a0 famous pledge \u2018Never, Never, Never, Never.\u2019 Just over a quarter of a century \u00a0 later, that same DUP leader entered a power-sharing administration at \u00a0 Stormont with Provisional Sinn Fein and unleashed the era of \u2018The Chuckle \u00a0 Brothers\u2019.<\/p>\n

Some day, the \u00a0 Occupied 26 Counties which now form the failed and bankrupt republic will \u00a0 re-enter the Commonwealth.<\/p>\n

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