Forty-odd years ago there used to be what were called ‘butter
mountains’, ‘milk lakes’ and ‘wine lakes’. They were the result of the
then EEC’s guaranteed prices for farmers. They overproduced, knowing
they’d be recompensed.
Anyway, it wasn’t all bad because the butter mountain was sold off at
knockdown prices in supermarkets and in some cases distributed freely to
pensioners and other people who met certain criteria.
Here, various charities and community groups were allocated butter to
distribute. So naturally various organisations like the Salvation Army,
St Vincent de Paul and the UDA were called into service.
The UDA, what? Seriously?
Nationalists were aghast. After all, the UDA had already killed hundreds
of Catholics, sometimes without even using their murder gang nom de
guerre, the non-existent UFF. (Where was the UFF compound in Long Kesh?)
The inclusion of the UDA in distributing the EEC’s surplus butter
confirmed the government and security forces’ ambivalent attitude to
loyalist terrorists.
From early days the British army engaged with the UDA, allowed them to
mount road checks and march around the streets of central Belfast masked
in motley army surplus.
Documents from the National Archives show the army and NIO were well
aware of the large proportion of UDA and smaller number of UVF in the
UDR, the free access of UDA men to army barracks, and routine swapping
of intelligence. Finally admitting the UDA was primarily engaged in
terrorism, but only after they’d killed about 400 people, the NIO
proscribed the UDA in 1992.
Collusion and tolerance of the UVF was less obvious, but everyone knew
who the leader was throughout most of the Troubles and where he lived in
the Shankill.
His home was never raided, nor were the homes of the UVF brigade staff,
all of whom were known to RUC and army. Indeed some of the brigade staff
were invited to the Belfast mayor’s parlour for drinks after council
meetings, depending who the unionist mayor was.
Given all that (and there’s a lot more), you can see how difficult it is
for unionist politicians to accept that nominally illegal (when’s the
last time anyone was convicted of membership?) loyalist terrorist gangs
are social pariahs who should be cast into exterior darkness.
Tolerance remains a sentiment, even though they’ve degenerated into a
foul incubus on the poorest loyalist districts.
Still, it beggars belief that DUP ministers in the toy-town assembly sit
down with representatives of the very people who are responsible for the
continued impoverishment of loyalist society.
It is beyond bizarre that ministers discuss with these guys (they’re
always guys) social and economic development in the very districts whose
social and economic development the men these guys represent are
blocking.
It’s their protection rackets, drug dealing, loan sharking and more,
which have driven businesses and residents out of districts. The guys
the LCC represent are responsible for the poverty and dereliction.
All the talk about ‘transition’ is hot air. There are now more adherents
to loyalist gangs than there were when the British government set up its
useless Independent Reporting Commission on paramilitaries. It’s a waste
of money and time and should be disbanded.
The fact is that there is no incentive to transition, much less for gang
bosses to declare the organisations are going out of business. On the
contrary, there is every reason to stay in business, legitimate and
otherwise, because, astonishingly, for decades the NIO principally – but
also the Irish government and scandalously Stormont – pay these groups
to behave themselves and thereby reinforce their position in loyalist
society.
The flawed policy began 40 years ago in the naive belief that you could
create in loyalist districts the equivalent of Sinn Féin in republican
districts. Just plain wrong.
Loyalists don’t vote for fronts for paramilitaries. Actually, when they
stood for election not even their own members voted for them. Surely 40
years of failure prove beyond peradventure that it’s a failed strategy
that perpetuates the ruin of loyalist districts.
The only strategy that can succeed is to take their money away.
Unfortunately, Sinn Féin have been fully paid-up participants in
bankrolling the groups through the disgraceful Social Investment Fund
they and the DUP ran at Stormont.
Audit reports uncovered “significant failings” and “major flaws” in the
way money was allocated and accounted but repeatedly Sinn Féin and the
DUP rejected any attempts at reform.
Sinn Féin represents communities. People in those communities vote for
them. Loyalists don’t represent anyone. No-one votes for them, the cause
of their misfortune.
The only way to get rid of them is to take their money away, but as long
as the NIO and Irish government fund them and Sinn Féin and the DUP
conspire to share out their slush funds, they keep loyalist gangs in
business.
This post was originally published on here
