Loyalist road to politics will be long and winding
UDA leader Jackie McDonald with a wreath at the Sandy Row Remembrance Day service in Belfast
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There is something richly ironic in the UDA claiming credit for the disbandment of a body which they stoutly denied any responsibility for even when the proverbial dogs in the street knew that the Ulster Freedom Fighters was an alias for the main loyalist paramilitary organisation.
Now that it is to go, and that is welcome news indeed, what difference does it make? Is Windscale less toxic than Sellafield? Will the UDA, rebranded to shed the mantle of terror, intimidation, murder and general criminality which enabled it to dominate whole communities, be able to come to terms with the huge culture changes which are required if it is to fulfil the promise of yesterday's statement. In standing down the Ulster Freedom Fighters, the Ulster Defence Association, which under one guise or another was responsible for the murder of 431 people during the Troubles, has shed one of its more ferocious flags of convenience.
It has disbanded the shock troops, their version of the SAS. Of all the murders of Catholics over the past 30 years, the most reprehensible were attributed to the UFF, accepted by most as a gossamer-thin disguise for the berets and sunglasses of senior ranks of the UDA.
That they should have been taken out of the equation is progress indeed, and should be recognised as such. The semantics of whether putting weapons beyond use is equivalent to decommissioning, and whether either actually means very much, threatens to be a replay of an old tape about IRA decommissioning, and should not bother anyone too much. The important thing is that the guns should remain silent.
What is important, too, is the acceptance that the war is over. The loyalists always argued, not always convincingly, that their violence was reactive, and would stop when the threat was lifted. Remove the IRA and they would not exist. While this is true only up to a point, and while it has taken 10 years since the IRA downed tools, at least it is a start and is to be welcomed as a significant step on the road towards a more normal society.
There have been attempts in the past to divert the loyalist paramilitaries from violence to political activity. They failed to complete the process because of militancy in the ranks, a culture which inclined loyalist prisoners to pump iron while Republicans were studying for Open University degrees, because some could not give up power and others were making too much money in rackets. Significantly, however, they failed because of a lack of response from the wider political system, particularly in unionism, which continued to deride them as gunmen who should leave politics to their betters and social superiors.
Changing the culture of loyalism is more difficult than changing the IRA. There is not the same coherent command structure, the same internal discipline. The self-styled Brigadiers in the various areas were robber barons, maintaining a grip on their own fiefdoms, engaged in internecine struggles, coming together rhetorically to issue bombastic statements under the banner of the United Loyalist Command. This provides an immediate difficulty in making new policies stick.
A second and even more direct impediment to loyalist demobilisation is the lack of a realistic political alternative. Sinn Fein, since the H-Block protests and the hunger strikes had spent years patiently building a political capability, first through the local councils, then through election to Dail and Assembly (and, of course the empty, but politically and financially rewarding seats at Westminster).
The result was that when the time came to persuade people to give up the guns, there was indeed a credible alternative strategy for gaining power and influence. Loyalists are nowhere near this position.
For one thing, their own people are reluctant to vote for them, or even, as the statement notes, to bother to vote at all. For another, the Protestant population in the North is more stratified on class lines than the Catholic (although that is changing) and middle-class unionist politicians tend to look down on the emerging political representatives of the hoi polloi.
It is a fact, too, that the political wing of loyalism has, if anything, weakened since the heady days of the Good Friday Agreement. Even though the system was benignly rigged to secure the presence of a voice for paramilitaries, the absence since of David Adams, Gary McMichael, Billy Hutchinson (and, sadly, David Ervine) is a great loss to the body politic, and a great handicap to those now trying to turn the energies of the UDA permanently towards politics.
It was to fill this hole that the Conflict Transformation Initiative was conceived, from which Margaret Ritchie, the Minister for Social Development, has ordered the removal of support. She may now claim credit for having pushed the UDA the last few paces towards yesterday's statement, and she might well be right, but the problem still remains.
It has been easier, too, for Sinn Fein to talk politics to a community which saw themselves on the winning side. True Irish unity has been put on the never-never, but in every other way the community they represent sees improvement in its standing, in its prospects, in the quality of life and in its self-regard.
Loyalist areas, in contrast, see recent years as a history of loss -- of power, of status and political control and, crucially, of employment.
But most of the changes have little to do with the Good Friday Agreement and more to do with globalisation and the move of heavy industry to Asia.
