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How New Is New Loyalism?

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How New Is New Loyalism? HOW NEW IS NEW LOYALISM? CATHERINE MCGLYNN EUROPEAN STUDIES RESEARCH INSTITUTE UNIVERSITY OF SALFORD SALFORD, UK Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements of the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, February 2004 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction Page 1 Chapter One Hypothesis and Methodology Page 6 Chapter Two Literature Review: Unionism, Loyalism, Page 18 New Loyalism Chapter Three A Civic Loyalism? Page 50 Chapter Four The Roots of New Loyalism 1966-1982 Page 110 Chapter Five New Loyalism and the Peace Process Page 168 Chapter Six New Loyalism and the Progressive Page 205 Unionist Party Chapter Seven Conclusion: How New is New Loyalism? Page 279 Bibliography Page 294 ABBREVIATONS CLMC Combined Loyalist Military Command DENI Department of Education for Northern Ireland DUP Democratic Unionist Party IOO Independent Orange Order IRA Irish Republican Army LAW Loyalist Association of Workers LVF Loyalist Volunteer Force NICRA Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association NIHE Northern Ireland Housing Executive NILP Northern Ireland Labour Party PUP Progressive Unionist Party RHC Red Hand Commandos RHD Red Hand Defenders SDLP Social Democratic and Labour Party UDA Ulster Defence Association UDP Ulster Democratic Party UDLP Ulster Democratic and Loyalist Party UFF Ulster Freedom Fighters UUP Ulster Unionist Party UUUC United Ulster Unionist Council UWC Ulster Workers' Council UVF Ulster Volunteer Force VPP Volunteer Political Party ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my PhD supervisor, Jonathan Tonge for all his support during my time at Salford University. I am also grateful to all the staff at the Northern Irish Political collection at the Linen Hall Library in Belfast for their help and advice. I received full co-operation from the Progressive Unionist Party during the researching of this thesis and am particularly indebted to Eileen Ward, Dawn Purvis and Sam Johnston for their help with arranging interviews. This thesis is dedicated to my nephews, Liam, Sean, Thomas and Jacob and to my niece, Amy. Abstract; How New is New Loyalism? This thesis provides an analysis of the manifestos of two political parties in Northern Ireland. These parties are the Progressive Unionist Party (PUP) and the Ulster Democratic Party (UDP), which is now defunct. These parties came to prominence during the peace process that led to the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 and both were termed new loyalist. The phrase new loyalism suggests a novel alternative to the pessimistic and exclusivist ethos of traditional loyalist expression as exemplified by lan Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). However, a brief survey of the history of labourism in the North-East of Ireland reveals that there have been previous attempts to form a political party with a social democratic manifesto, an agenda that could supplant sectarianism as the main organising principle of Protestant working class politics. Some of these movements have emerged from within the same loyalist paramilitary groupings who were responsible for the formation of the new loyalist parties. The purpose of the research on which this thesis was based was to ascertain if the PUP and the UDP represented a genuinely new and different political direction in loyalism, which could outlast uncertainty over constitutional matters. A framework to test the parties was constructed from two separate literature reviews. The first was a review of literature defining unionism, loyalism and new loyalism. The second considered the academic debate on reconciling differentiated citizenship rights within a polity. Data was then collected on the development and manifestos of the two parties and qualitative interviews were conducted with fifteen members of the PUP. The thesis concludes that the parties were both affected by a number of external factors, in particular the growing disaffection of unionists with the Agreement. However, it must also be concluded that neither party developed an agenda that transcended sectarianism. INTRODUCTION This thesis is concerned with evaluating the concept of new loyalism in the context of Northern Irish politics. The term new loyalism is associated with two political parties the PUP (Progressive Unionist Party) and the UDP (Ulster Democratic Party). The purpose of the thesis is to evaluate the agenda and actions of these parties and provide conclusions as to whether these parties could be described as genuinely innovative and therefore whether there is anything actually new about new loyalism. New loyalism can be defined as a distinctive political movement within Ulster loyalism. Loyalism is a unionist political ideology, which means that loyalists believe that Northern Ireland is a legitimate part of the United Kingdom and that this constitutional status should be preserved. However, loyalist ideology dictates that this union is constantly under threat. These threats come partly from the Irish Republic. Irish irredentism is seen as one of the main factors that has encouraged Irish nationalists living within the borders of Northern Ireland to agitate, sometimes violently, for the unification of Ireland as an island. Successive British Governments at Westminster have also been defined as a threat. This is because they are unwilling to unequivocally guarantee the future of the union, and have kept the province of Northern Ireland at a distance, despite a history of sacrifice and allegiance to the British Crown by the loyalist people. Loyalism is also threatened by traitors who are supposedly unionist, but who fail to understand that, in order to survive, albeit precariously, loyalism cannot make any compromises or concessions to Irish nationalism. Loyalism as an ideology has been developing in the North-East of Ireland since the Plantation of Ulster in the Seventeenth Century. Loyalists connect key events of this period, such as the massacre of settlers by Catholic natives in 1641, and battles between the forces of William of Orange and Kings James II in 1688 and 1690 to current events. The continued references to this historical period, the equation of loyal and disloyal in Northern Ireland with Protestant and Catholic, and an emphasis on contractarian relationships between individuals and the government, can make loyalism appear as no more than an anachronism within the modern British state. However, the components of loyalism - pessimism, vulnerability, hostility to Irish nationalism and suspicion of change - persist within an increasingly secular Northern Ireland, because loyalism provides an immediate 'common-sense' explanation of the conflict between unionism and nationalism. Given that loyalism is based on intransigence and pessimism, it would follow that new loyalism as an ideology would exhibit more confidence about the merits of change and the future of the union. The definition of new loyalism used in this thesis does take this as a starting point. New loyalism is taken to mean a style of politics that is designed to secure the union by enhancing the quality of life of all those who live within it. This involves a number of policies that make it distinct from loyalism. Firstly, Traditional loyalism interprets the history of the province as one of a loyal Protestant people seeking to defend themselves against a horde of Catholic rebels. New loyalism rests on a different history, constructed from events leading up to and after the establishment of Northern Ireland in 1921. According to this interpretation of the past, nationalists were deliberately excluded from social, economic and political life and the emergence of conflict became inevitable. Therefore, it would follow that negotiating with nationalists and searching for ways to make Northern Ireland more inclusive is the best way of preventing further violence. In contrast to traditional loyalism, involving the British and Irish governments in such negotiations, would be seen as positive and constructive, rather than inherently dangerous. Secondly, traditional loyalism depicts political and cultural identity in Northern Ireland as a binary split between Protestant and Catholic, British and Irish and, crucially, loyal and disloyal. Therefore a new loyalist approach to identity would be one which sought to break these automatic connections. Thirdly, loyalist politicians have often addressed socio-economic issues, rather than just constitutional ones. However, they have connected this style of politics to the binary split of loyal and disloyal, meaning that material resources became part of the battle between loyalists and rebels. In this arena, as in constitutional matters, loyalists had to be dominant because the alternative was defeat and, eventually, obliteration. Conversely new loyalist politicians would use politics based on material need and the distribution of resources as a means of creating alliances across the religious cleavage, rather than reinforcing it. From these factors a definition of new loyalism can be offered. It is a style of politics that demonstrates optimism about the future of the union and also demonstrates confidence about dealing with the key actors in any round of negotiations on the subject, the nationalist community and the British and Irish governments. It is also a style of politics that is committed to eroding the binary split between loyal and disloyal and to encouraging a commitment to forging cross-community alliances based on social and economic issues. This definition is the basis of the positive model of new loyalism used in this thesis. As will be outlined in the
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