Here’s an intriguing question: why have unionist/loyalist paramilitaries failed to develop into a powerful political force as republican paramilitaries have done in the form of Sinn Féin?
Difficult to say. Maybe it was because loyalist paramilitaries existed as a counter-force to the IRA. Or because they hated fenians. Or because they were left bewildered when the IRA called a permanent ceasefire and decommissioned.
It’s not that they’ve always been well served by the DUP. Time and again people like Billy Hutchinson will point out that the Protestant loyalist working class is not well served by the big Unionist parties. And quite a number of unionist/loyalists seem to see things similarly. Yet they seem unable to build a meaningful party for Protestant/loyalist working class.
For a while it seemed that the Progressive Unionist Party (PUP) might be the answer. With people like David Ervine and Dawn Purvis, there appeared to be a genuine alternative. But then David Ervine died and Dawn Purvis quit and the light flickered and near-to died.
And then Sophie Long appeared. She looked well, she talked well, and she was doing a PhD in Queen’s. She also came up with the perfect election line for working-class unionists: “If we’d rather be robbed by a Protestant than ruled by a Catholic, we’ve got problems.” As a communications director for the PUP, she seemed perfect.
But then she made the mistake of sending a tweet expressing sympathy with the family and friends of Martin McGuinness : “”Condolences to Martin McGuinness’ family friends and comrades.”
Uproar within the DUP. She was a Lundy, a Marxist, a Provo-sympathiser. She received death threats. So she’s left the party. She wishes the PUP well but that’s it.
What is it with some sections of unionism? John McCallister tried to set up a party that’d represent unionism with a human face. He lost his seat. Now Sophie Long has presumed to send condolences to Martin McGuinness’s family and friends, and gets at least one death-threat. So, not unreasonably, she quits.
Depressing. Or maybe it’s what Bill Clinton said at Martin McGuinness’s funeral: the ‘them’ in our society is shrinking while the “us” is expanding. That is, those who want to cling to tribal cries of ‘McGuinness-hands-dripping-blood’ are becoming fewer and fewer, as more and more unionists see the cul-de-sac nonsense of such cries. Maybe Sophie Long’s resignation from the PUP is another straw in the wind showing that intelligent unionists/loyalists want out of the cul-de-sac.
We can only hope so. Meanwhile, Sophie may want to send to the PUP a double reminder: Marxism is about creating a classless society, and right now the Protestant/loyalist community are the bottom rung in the capitalist class system.
Now, word is that she’s quit the PUP. She was their publicity director.
Yes, Jude I too had seen and heard Sophie on radio and tv interviews and had been. impressed by the way she spoke and conducted herself. That is three “Progressives” in the proper sense of the word that the PUP has lost, David , Dawn and now Sophie. Are those that railed against her going to demonstrate the same antagonism, malevolence and rancour towards their queen, and maybe put her image on their bonfires ?
With David Ervine the PUP in effect died too
– since his death, they have limped on and probably will do so for the foreseeable future. I was fortunate to have met Mr Irvine on a number of occasions – he freely came into West Belfast in the late 1990’s, to chat to my A-Level politics class. The guy was a leader – you could see then, how he could bring people with him, his charisma, intelligence, sense of direction – and the respect he garnered from both within his own community and outside of that. I didn’t agree with his politics, but I liked him! Far and few between since then! His background, similar to Martin McGuinness – a background of engagement in the conflict to a journey of peace making. He fought in the war, he pursued the peace, he made peace!
The problem for the likes of the PUP is Billy Hutchinson. He has nothing on Irvine and as long as he remains where he is, the PUP are doomed to continual failure. His wannabe “hard man” approach serves to do nothing but embarrass the party. He reminds of of “Big Merve” from Give my Head Peace. And the likes of Winky Irvine in the background doesn’t help matters either – I’ve met Sophie a number of times at political debates / events. She attended one you were at too Jude in Killough a few years back. She entered the room late and announced as a loyalist she was willing to hear how a United Ireland could be sold to her and she would favour one if it was appealing – she was liking to listen in the least – this type of thinking (and listening) within loyalism and the PUP is dangerous – any type of progressive thinking in the PUP is dangerous. So perhaps the Progressive element to their name needs changed.
SF have successfully made the transition within the republican movement to become the voice of Republicanism – it took years in the making – I don’t feel the PUP have managed to overcome the power struggle within the UVF to be the voice of loyalism. In actual fact they are no where near it! Loyalist paramilitaries have become so embroiled with criminality a move the politics would probably damage their pockets and their power within their communities.
Working class loyalism it seems are left outside the political circle – I personally don’t see any party represent their interests – but what exactly are their interests ? Flegs, protests, marching – themins are the enemy – mention IRA, Gerry Adams, Republicans taking over and you’ve got their vote! May the vote of fear be with you!
As the PUP have been directly connected to the terrorist organisation known as the UVF they will never receive my vote.
I suspect many “working class” Protestant/Unionist/Loyalist people think the same.
The PUP are the only pro abortion unionist party. Thank God for their demise.
There’s that too.
I may be guilty of simplifying matters, but I believe it boils down to opportunity. Because jobs were more freely available in Protestant working areas, they didn’t need to concern themselves with the labour movement and could focus their efforts entirely on the constitutional question. That luxury was not allowed the unemployed catholic man. Hence the difference in voting patterns.
Not sure if that statement stands up to scrutiny Freddie.
The most disadvantaged group in society is the Protestant working class. They have the lowest educational standards along with the traditional heavy industries where they usually found employment disappearing.
I think Freddie is talking “historically” there , Scott.There is the assumption that in Belfast , up until heavy industry and specifically shipbuilding declined that protestant /unionism in working-class areas had “traditional” jobs inherited from father to son and so were less inclined to worry about the prospect of joblessness.That may have inclined them to a more conservative leaning “don’t rock the boat” attitude.In that respect many Catholic/ Nationalists leaned more towards left-wing socialist policies and were more inclined to find hope in trade-unionism, socialism and even the far reaches of communist ideas.
In the present, none of that heavy industry exists and the working classes across the board everywhere have very quickly to get used to the facts of different kinds of careers and educations. There was a time in the 1960s in England , for example where you could practically walk from one job to a different one every week.It’s not like like that now , of course. If the Protestant working classes have been left adrift, their only hope is in education .Even if they have the wherewithal to emigrate to seek employment further afield they will now be in competition with a well-educated migrant workforce from right across Europe. They will have to be prepared to learn how to think bigger and that only comes with education.
Loyalists already have the DUP to vote for. Close enough to the hard men if things kick off yet still able to pretend to always be “constitutional”. I agree about Sophie, Dawn and the late David. Billy Hutchinson does not give the impression he is very politically enlightened. His child catcher garb during the 1912 celebrations were both bizarre and hilarious. He is too much of a fleg man.
Out of the mouths of Would-be-Abes, Esteemed Blogmeister, oft comes the truthiness.
That was the ancient truism which sprang to that which one is still pleased to call one’s ‘mind’ when, at the St. Patty’s Day shindig (i.e., having a dig at the Shinners) in the White House, The Donald seemed to encounter difficulties in getting his silver-spooned tongue around the name of Bean an Taoisigh / Mrs. E. Kenny.
-Feola.
He is alleged to have said when attempting to pronounce:
-Fionnuala.
How they twittered, how they chaffed, how the travelling hackitariat from ‘The only English-speaking Country in the EU’ tweeted and laughed, cackled and chuckled. They would, of course.
What they didn’t reference was the possibility (distinct ) that An Dónal was having a little guffaw at their cement-headed expense, as The Perkin suspects. In fact, one is pretty sure, if not pretty, that what the Would-be Abe was referring to, was the old Gaelic phrase:
-Ag titim chun feola.
Consider the following: the first words An Dónal was likely to have heard even as he was being rocked in the cradle / a chliabhán á bhogadh in Queens, NY were not, acutally in the German Queen’s English, even though his ancestry on his paternal side was German, but rather, erm, Scots Gaelic.
His mother, Mary Anne McLeod, born in the viallage of Tong on the Isle of Lewis in the Outher Herbrides, spoke Scots Gaelic . Now, Tong is an anglicisation of Tunga which, in all probability, equates to Teanga in the Leprechaun.
Teanga, according to Dineen’s Dictionary, can mean a tongue, whether in a mouth or in a shoe (or even in a foot in the mouth), a clapper of a bell or even the tongue of a (gulp) trumpet.
But then, the hackitariat of Hibernia (the Deep South of) would not be over obsessed with Scots Gaelic: otherwise the fact that is it rhymes with Gallic is soemthing which our anal-retentive smart Alecs in the anglicised Free Southern Stateen would never tire of reminding us.
Speaking of anglicised, on a clear day one, atop the Featherbed Mountain above the English-speaking city of Dublin (and proud of it), can see not only The Mountains of Mourne, looking north, but also, The Isle of Anglesea, looking east.
The Isle of Anglesea, of course, is where North was reared, if not born. That was George North, rugby warrior on the wing, whose father was an English-speaking Englishman while his mother was a Welsh (and English) speaking Welshwoman. Born in King’s Lynne, Norfolk, at the age of two he moved to the North of Wales.
One was reminded of this recently while watching the Welsh wallop The Team of Us in a pub, during which GN managed to,erm, dot down twice. When one found oneself seated beside an Englishman who was cheering for Wales.
Eh?
Turned out that the English chap was married to a Welshwoman and had made the same journey north as George North’s father. To the same village, in fact: his children attended the same school as George North did:
-Ysgol Uwcharadd Bodederm.
One’s Cisk-drinking English companion was surprised at how well George North played, considering his recent bouts of concussion. Just as he had been surprised when he first received his children’s school reports, which were completely in y Cymraeg:
-The local headmaster refused point blank to provide me with an English translation !
During more years than one cares to compute one can never recal one (ceann amháin) article in an Irish organ of rex accord which compared / contrasted the fortunes or otherwise of the two native languages of the next door neighbouring countries of Cymru and Eire.
This is by way of a commodius vicus of recirculation, E.B., in response to the question you raise about the putative future of P.U.P..
In every political arena there are many different theatres: one of which is Leinster House.
Now that same Daughter of Parliaments, aka the Doll, loathes the Loyalists though with nothing like the same intensity as, say, the Mother of Parliaments in Westminster, does.
In fact, the Doll House detests the Shinners to a far deeper, even, unfathomable deph.
The Doll is even prepared to appoint Norneverland folk to the Seanad (nudge, wink that’s Leprechaun for Senate, one thinks) whom they loathe but who are useful because they can be used as a cat-in-nine-tails to flay the Shinners.
Let the P.U.P. consider the following dodge, oops, option.
Let the distaff side of the P.U.P. form a female front organisation called (see below) which would focus its attention on, say, the Mother Tongues of both Ireland and Scotland. Put out aeróga / feelers to the Fianna Failures / Fianna Fail Betters with an unspoken view to getting a nomination for the Seanad/ Senate.
Shouldn’t be a prob – there are precedents, you know.
Don’t let the Trappist-like trappings of RC in the Free Southern Stateen put the nominee off: in fact, the rabid anti-Romanist frenzy in the FSS is unparalled in Western Europe this century and puts the anti-popery paranoia of the Paisleyites in the coin-collection plate rather than in the silent collection category.
As regards the loathing of Leprechaun this has taken a back-seat for the duration of the Anti-Romanist Rantfest. Right now it is being conducted as a low-intensity Kitsonian campaign of attrition, which raises its hydra-heads above the parapet occasionally – such as the imaginative use of the hate word ‘ellie’ the better to diss the Gaelscoileanna with.
The Northern nominee need not worry either about the level of loathing for the Leprechaun as felt by the Fianna Failures and the Fianna Fail Betters: it is a dead heat. Much, oops, little has been made of the current Minister for the Gaelttacht, Hearther Humphreys, MP, and her inabilty to rub two focals of the Mother Tongue, together.
There is, of course, a (gasp) precendent.
When Sile de Valera, M.P., (yes, one those Devs) held the same post twenty years ago she too wouldn’t or couldn’t (probably both) rub two focals of the Mother Tongue together.
Once inside the Seanad/ Senate the nominee of the Dawn of a New Eire (for that would the name of the PUP front, to be unveiled once nominated) could then proceed to address the lower house of the ‘Only English-speaking country in the EU’ on each and every topic under the sun and raincloud alike, in the one tongue, and the one tongue only:
-The First Official Mother Tongue. (see Dev above)
The crack (The Unionost Times translation: craic) would be 90 in the Isle of Woman and reduce the Isle of Man’s claim ot the c-word to a coin-collection plate dimesnsion.
Bigly/ Go Mórmhór.
I wonder is there a distinction to be made between ‘pro-Union’ and ‘Unionist’? Given that one’s position on the union depends on one’s background, Unionism appears to be something a person is born into, rather than a position one arrives at. For as long as Unionism continues to define itself within such narrow boundaries, those of a more moderate disposition with a pro-Union pov are increasingly sidelined. This Sophie Long business, though barely a footnote in the political history of Ireland tells us much about where Unionism finds itself in 2017.
Important conversations need to be had between all of us here, but while the likes of Sophie Long get cast aside (with a few death threats thrown in for good measure) these conversations become increasingly more difficult to have.
As somone on Twitter said the other day – Unionists are currently standing in a circle facing one another randomly firing weapons.