A Tangled Web

Essential Stats



Today's Newsletter doesn't pussyfoot around with cheap optimism and gut-wrenching spin. It gives an accurate portrayal of the darker side of Northern Ireland since the 'ceasefires'. The paper reports that there have been 179 people murdered by terrorists since 1994. What's more, there were over 11,000 terrorist-related incidents.



The Newsletter is right to point out that both loyalist and republican terrorists are responsible for such outrages. In most respects, loyalist paramilitaries have been even more proficient in the criminality and murder leagues than their republican counterparts. There is, however, one massive difference which cannot be overlooked. Parties fronting the UVF and UDA have virtually no support among the pro-Union populace. The UDA's political wing, the Ulster Democratic Party, did not even win a seat in the 1998 Assembly elections, notwithstanding the implementation of electoral rules designed to maximise their chances of success. Likewise, the PUP lost one of their two seats in last November's election. Contrast that with the meteoric rise of republican fascism in the form of Sinn Fein/IRA.



Nationalists like to pretend that the genesis of the Provisionals lay in the Civil Rights marches of the late Sixties. Originally the context of the problem lay in the refusal of the nationalist community to give even the most basic undertakings of support to the Union, thus precipitating areas of discrimination (though nothing like to the extent that nationalist legend depicts) from successive Stormont governments. We Unionists have always argued that any 'rights' over and above the commonly implemented liberties (which existed in the main in Northern Ireland society long before the Civil Rights movement became popular) should only have come with some reciprocation from nationalists on practical allegiance to the UK state. What we have seen, contrarily, is a nationalist community showered with rights and privileges unknown to any comparable minority in the Western world, without any indication that they wish Northern Ireland to be stable and enduring as a part of the UK.



This peace process, like all others before it, is predicated on nationalist appeasement without anything in return. For so long as that mindset endures, no process will bring stability in Ulster's wider society. This will be the case even if the DUP swallows principle and engages in a governmental two-step with the IRA's proxies.