The Troubles with Peace. – by Michael Lagan

There can be no doubt that the Good Friday Agreement was a positive change for NEI.  It was initially a good deal for everyone, no matter what some may think, but is it still?  A country that stands still, either politically, culturally, or economically will at some point become stagnant and that is what has come to be with Stormont and indeed to some extent the Good Friday Agreement.  At this point much of the Good Friday Agreement in not fit for purpose and while the general premise of the GFA is the only game in town, some of it needs to be renewed, modernised, and made to work for the people of NEI now, in this day and age.

Many within Unionism and some outside that denomination have looked on the GFA as a capitulation to the other side.  Some within Unionism and Loyalism viewed the GFA as nothing but a deal to get Sinn Fein into government, to partake in politics, even though it had been doing so for years and at times stopped from doing so by Unionism itself, while more hardline Unionists and most definitely Loyalists viewed it with as much scepticism as humanly possible, a deal which saw Sinn Fein, Republicans share power with Unionists from within the hallowed walls and halls of Ulster’s Unionist powerbase, Stormont.  

In reality, the GFA was a deal that most notably stopped the killing, it stopped the bombs and the bloodshed on both sides for a long time but it always seemed like nationalism and mainstream Republicanism took the deal more seriously than Unionism and Loyalism.  While a huge emphasis was placed on forcing the IRA to decommission and put its weapons and explosive arsenal beyond use, Loyalists weren’t as eager to put their weapons beyond use.  Twenty-five years after the GFA came into being, while a smattering of incidents have sullied the very real determination of nationalism and mainstream Republicanism to keep the peace, 50 masked Loyalists casually waltzed into Weavers Grange in Newtwonards, in plain sight right under the noses of PSNI posted in the immediate area, and proceeded to remove South East Antrim UDA murals and posters.

It’s not the first time this has happened.  Masked Loyalists openly walked through Pitt Park in East Belfast, just off the Newtownards Road (ironically) in February 2021 in an attempt at a show of strength.  On the 30th of March, 2 weeks ago, up to 25 masked men, some armed with machetes and some openly brandishing guns gathered outside the courthouse in broad daylight in Newtownards and made their way into Weavers Grange determined to set the world to rights Loyalist style.  Obviously, this all stemmed from a UDA feud over drugs and gangs of men who use the label ‘UDA’ to peddle their wares but while some Republicans have been labeled ‘dissident’ the Loyalist terrorists are going to great lengths to keep that label off their backs. Mainstream Loyalism, if that is a correct term at this stage, claims these men are not UDA affiliated as they were banished from the group for dealing drugs, yet the very same entities were selling the drugs and indeed making bombs and maintaining dumps full of guns which were revealed recently…we’ll not mention the 12,500 active Loyalist paramilitaries at this stage shhhhh.

Loyalism and Unionism have never really taken to the GFA in the way nationalism and Republicanism have.  In fact, the UUP was scorned and frowned upon by many within Unionism for daring to look in the same direction as nationalists without holding their noses.  While small groups of so-called ‘republican paramilitaries still exist, they are insignificant on the grand scale as the majority of nationalists and Republicans are wedded to peace.  The quote “those accustomed to privilege see equality as oppression” comes to mind in all of this in so much as many within Unionism didn’t want the GFA because it gave people, humans other than Protestant Unionists, a semblance of power over their own futures and dreams.  Those humans being Irish Catholics living in a predominantly Protestant state where ‘jobs for the boys’ was rife and housing was in an absolute shambles with Catholic families of 7 and 8 living in 2 and 3-room houses and Protestant couples living in 5-bedroom houses.

No, Stormont has become stale because Unionism not surprisingly has stopped it from working properly and faithfully.  Lest we forget the DUP did not sign up to the GFA but is now the predominant Unionist party in the Assembly giving them a very powerful veto over anything and everything they don’t like including something as simple as an Irish Language Act.  In a time of literal crisis within many sectors of our society, the DUP wields a veto in a different way by standing outside the institutions, refusing to allow those MLAs who do want to work for our people to do so.  You will have heard the likes of Jamie Bryson and Sammy Wilson babbling on about when Sinn Fein collapsed the institutions for 3 years, and while no one can deny they did indeed collapse Stormont, contrary to what many may think it was due to the fact that no one was able to hold Unionism to account within Stormont or from the UK government thanks to the makeup of the institutions of the time, meaning Unionism was running rampant over the GFA and everyone else in Stormont with no way to stop it.  The fact we got an Irish Language Act out of it was a sideshow.

So, while we do indeed need Stormont up and running and working for us again, we also need a new modernised GFA.  One which stops parties like the DUP from pulling the entire system down over something they nor we can change.  It was always a deal to be done between the EU and the British Government and while the deal has been done by the adults in the room (some may argue that point) the DUP are now being treated as petulant children by their own sovereign government for rejecting a deal which would have been finalised years ago if it hadn’t been for the sheer entitled antics of the DUP, the TUV and unelected personalities within Unionism with more than a small part being played by Loyalist terrorists and the Loyalist Communities Council.

Ironically, while this has all been about the GFA, the reason Stormont collapsed wasn’t because of anything going on at Stormont this time, it was because of Brexit, because of the mess the DUP helped engineer, because of the NI Protocol, and now because of the Windsor Framework (the NI Protocol MK2).  It’s about time the DUP and Unionism had a long hard look at themselves because not so long ago they were accusing nationalism and Sinn Fein of destroying NEI.  What say you now?