The State of Loyalism Goretti Horgan Anyone visiting the North of Ireland few days'. It urged people to tell Alliance: these days cannot drive through any city, `We don't want our national flag torn down town or hamlet there without finding part from City Hall. We can't let them make or all of it bedecked with massive union Belfast a cold house for Unionists.' flags. From December 2012 into the early months of 2013, to the time of writing, Belfast and all of the North has seen al- Background most daily protests about the union flag, some ending in riots; all featuring vicious The focus on the Alliance Party arose not sectarianism on the streets. just from the City Hall vote but because Alliance's Naomi Long had defeated DUP leader and First Minister Peter Robinson in the 2010 election. The shock result had little to do with flags but reflected dis- gust at newspaper revelations about the `Swish Family Robinson's' luxury lifestyle at the taxpayers' expense. Peter Robinson and his now-disgraced wife, Iris, who was also an MP, had claimed over half-a-million pounds a year in salaries and expenses Loyalist flag protest from Westminster, and had tried to claim twice for the same expenses on a regular basis. Peter Robinson had claimed $755 The protests started on December 3rd for a briefcase and Iris Robinson had tried after a vote in Belfast City Council to to claim for a $300 fountain pen. Working- fly the union flag over City Hall only on class DUP voters suffering the brunt of 18 designated days a year; the Queen's austerity measures were fuming. birthday etc. Sinn F´einhad wanted the There had also been a raft of rev- flag taken down altogether, but in the end elations about broader corruption in supported the `designated days' compro- DUP-controlled councils, particularly mise put forward by the `moderate' Al- Castlereagh in east Belfast where the liance Party. A loyalist protest outside Robinson family had close, lucrative ties City Hall erupted into violence minutes af- to property developers. These revelations ter the motion was passed. Rioting also came after Ian Paisley, senior and junior, broke out in east Belfast. The protesters had been shown to have profited from links had come onto the streets in response with property developers. to 40,000 leaflets slamming Alliance, dis- The loss of east Belfast was traumatic tributed across Belfast in a joint operation for the DUP. They set out to use the by Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and flags issue to stir up Protestant hostil- Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) activists. ity to Alliance. While Alliance Party of- The leaflets accused Alliance of: `back- fices and even councillors' homes - were at- ing the Sinn F´ein/SDLPposition that the tacked by mobs at the start of the protests, flag should be ripped down on all but a loyalist paramilitaries weighed in behind 46 the DUP/UUP - inspired protests and are pro-imperialist and pro-state; gung- changed tack towards more generally dis- ho supporters of the wars in Afghanistan ruptive tactics, like the rash of road-blocks. and Iraq, for example. From their incep- . tion, there have been allegations of collu- sion with the forces of the state. Since the peace process, clear evidence has emerged Loyalist Paramilitaries Death that the relationship went further than col- Squads of the British State lusion: loyalist paramilitaries were actively While today's loyalist paramilitary gangs promoted by the State as they went about emerged in the mid-1960s as a reactionary their grisly sectarian business. response to the civil rights movement, In July 1972, the British Army's GOC the roots of sectarianism go right back (General Officer Commanding), General to the plantations of the 17th century, Harry Tuzo, dispatched a paper to Home when racist depictions of the native Irish Secretary, William Whitelaw, suggesting as `savages' were employed to justify seiz- that the growth of loyalist paramilitaries ing their land. At the end of the 18th should be quietly promoted. The word- century, there were frequent clashes be- ing of the paper implied the creation of a tween Irish (Catholic) peasants and the `second front' against the Provisional IRA. English (Protestant) landlords. The land- `Vigilantes, whether UDA or not,' Tuzo lords then promoted an alliance between wrote, `should be discreetly encouraged in themselves and Protestant yeomen (inde- Protestant areas to reduce the load on the pendent farmers) against the Catholics - Security Forces.' with the Orange Order as the main mech- This suggestion wasn't entirely new. A anism for cross-class integration. As in- month earlier, up to 8,000 masked UDA dustry developed, the Orange Order (or men armed with iron bars and cudgels `Orange Lodge') moved into the towns confronted British troops in the Shankill and into Belfast where it operated to tie Road area. The British commander of Protestant workers to Protestant bosses land forces, Major-General Robert Ford, and encourage them to look down on arrived to negotiate with the UDA in the their Catholic fellow workers. The Or- back of a Saracen armoured car; they ange Lodge became the place to secure a struck a deal whereby the UDA and the skilled job - so such jobs were only open British soldiers conducted joint patrols of to Protestants. From time to time, the the area. British government armed the Orangemen The same paramilitaries, with the help to put down rebellions. of British army intelligence and the arms The Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) was and expertise of the part-time Ulster De- (re)formed in 1966, in response to com- fence Regiment (UDR), carried out a proxy memorations of the 1916 Rising; before the war, assassinating targets like solicitors year was out, it had killed two civilians - a Pat Finucane and Rosemary Nelson and Protestant and a Catholic. The other large over 1,000 other innocent civilians. Unsur- loyalist paramilitary group, the Ulster De- prisingly, they have always had links with fence Association (UDA), was formed in fascists; first with the National Front and Sept 1971. In its first year, it killed Combat 18, then with the BNP and lately more than 30 Catholic civilians. Loyal- the English Democrats. One link between ist paramilitaries are not, as they claim, the BNP and the English Democrats is Jim a Protestant equivalent of the IRA. They Dowson, who fell out with the BNP over 47 money, became a leader of the ED, and or court, despite being involved in the has addressed a number of the flag rallies. North in a highly important area of main- Dowson moves between Scotland, North- stream policing. ern Ireland and England setting up anti- The report reminds us of the over- abortion and fascist groups. whelming evidence from official inquiries of Despite the peace process and the `Pat- many abuses in covert policing in the past. ten reforms' - which saw the effectively As a result, the Patten report on polic- all-Protestant Royal Ulster Constabulary ing reform recommended that the Special (RUC) change name and badges to the Po- Branch be downsized and integrated into lice Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) for the PSNI, where it would be overseen by weeks the loyalist protesters were given an an independent board rather than a gov- easy ride by police. This showed the extent ernment minister. However, the St An- to which Northern Ireland remains a sec- drews Agreement included a `Memoran- tarian state. In contrast to protests by stu- dum of Understanding' whereby Special dents or anti-war protesters, police stood Branch was to be run by a parallel police by and allowed main roads to be blocked force - `a force outside a force' - answer- by small groups of teenagers. able only to `direct rule' Ministers. Since the Chief Constable has said that MI5 Secret and Political Policing: would focus only on dissident republicans, this means that two different covert polic- `The Policing You Dont See' ing regimes, in terms of operational tech- The devolution of policing and justice pow- niques, standards and oversight, are now ers was to be the end of the argument in place for republicans and loyalists. about the need to end the Northern state The CAJ research shows that in the - when the essential power of the state, UK oversight of MI5 is ineffective. Pol- its `bodies of armed men', came under the icy documents, which have been released to control of the people of Northern Ireland. CAJ under Freedom of Information, rather But, a state built on sectarianism cannot than encouraging safeguards actually ap- just leave it behind. Apart from the fact pear designed to limit accountability. The that the devolution of policing and justice documents discovered for the report show is merely a return to the status quo ante of an obsession with keeping anything with the years when Stormont ruled `a Protes- the label `national security' secret from tant state for a Protestant people', the de- politicians, lawyers, media and the public. volution of policing and justice leaves the After St Andrews, Tony Blair gave as- political aspects of policing in the hands surances that PSNI officers working with of British intelligence agency (or `Security MI5 would be `solely accountable' to the Service') MI5. Chief Constable and the Policing Board; in The `Committee on the Administration contrast, the CAJ report shows that PSNI of Justice' (CAJ) recently published: The officers, up to and including the Chief Con- Policing You Dont See: Covert Policing stable, working on national security mat- And The Accountability Gap. Researched ters are not accountable to anyone but and written by CAJ's deputy director, Westminster.