Loyalists in Northern Ireland losing faith in England as Brexit looms

In the beginning was the word, and the word was No. On Saturday, the last day of the Northern Ireland marching season, members of the Royal Black Preceptory, who dress in black and address each other as Sir Knight, paraded up and down in locations across the province to proclaim the Protestant religion and their allegiance to the British Throne.

The “Blackmen,” as they are known, like to think of themselves as the Brigade of Guards of the loyal orders, a cut above mere Orangemen and far removed from the vulgarities and thuggery of “loyalists”. And it is certainly true that in recent years their leaders have encouraged a more respectful attitude towards the Catholic and nationalist population.

But look closer and not a lot has changed. The resolutions put forward by the Royal Black are identical to those espoused by the Democratic Unionist Party: no to a united Ireland, no to abortion and same sex marriage, no to the Backstop (and the European Union) and no to any restoration of Stormont that involves compromise with Sinn Fein. On these fundamentals, most obviously on Europe and Irish unity, the DUP, the Blackmen and the Orangemen are at one with the paramilitaries of the UDA and UVF.

So where does this leave Unionism? Actually, it leaves it in the same place it has been for the last 21 years: No Surrender – Not an inch. Ulster will fight and Ulster will be right. The only difference between 1998 (or, come to that, 1912) and now is that the Tory Party in London is temporarily obliged to listen to the DUP and to pretend that England’s interests and those of Unionists are one and the same.

Come the general election, whether next month or next year, that obligation will cease. Either the Conservatives, under Johnson, will win an outright majority or Labour and the Liberal Democrats will come together in coalition. Either way, the DUP will be reduced to the sidelines of the national debate.

The party is already living a lie. It does not represent Northern Ireland. It does not even represent the whole of Unionism. In the disastrous 2017 general election called by Theresa May, the DUP won only 36 per cent of the vote. The first-past-the-post system meant they got their ten seats, but in several constituencies they just scraped home. Next time around, they are expected to see their vote fall and their number of MPs reduced, with the pro-EU Alliance Party the best positioned to take up the slack.

Such a result would confirm what the polls have consistently shown since the referendum, when 56 per cent of votes cast in Northern Ireland were for Remain. Between 60 and 65 per cent of the electorate is now thought to be opposed to Brexit, made up of roughly nine out of ten Catholic/Nationalists and a third of Protestant/Unionists.

Demographics are a key factor in all of this. The Catholic community has almost reached parity with what has historically always been a Protestant majority. But just as significant is the rise in the number of younger, better educated Protestants who see themselves as British and Irish and European and have no wish to be stripped of aspects of their identity with which they are increasingly comfortable.

The problem is that none of this takes cognisance of the largely working-class “loyalist” community. Hard-core Loyalists, that is to say those willing to take to the streets or join paramilitary organisations, are, for the most part, indifferent to religion. They are not church-goers. Buried deep within their ranks are criminal gangs that trade in drugs and prostitution and enforce their rule with punishment beatings and murder. It is these “loyalists,” on whom the DUP relies in part for its core support, with which any political settlement endorsing even the possibility Irish unity would have to contend. They are not interested in power-sharing or democracy; their only concern is that their “culture” and way of life should continue uninterrupted into the future, and if that means confrontation with the forces of law and order, so be it.

For the avoidance of doubt, the distinction between Unionists and loyalists is that the former, as law-abiding citizens, support the link with Britain and regard the Queen as a guarantor of that link. Most Unionists would vote Conservative in England, though, confusingly, a high proportion of them, if living among their notional kith and kin in Scotland, would probably opt for the SNP. Hardline Loyalists, on the other hand, would probably cast their votes in favour of the Labour or Brexit parties, depending on whether support for the NHS or a clampdown on immigration was the issue of the day.

Clear evidence of the divide, which is based almost entirely on levels of income and professional status, is writ large in Protestant Ulster. In the leafier suburbs of North Down, where BMWs and Mercedes are lined up in every driveway, you could easily be in Weybridge or the Altrincham district of Manchester. But in working-class neighbourhoods, whether urban or rural, flags – or “flegs” – are everywhere, with that of the Parachute Regiment a disturbing recent addition.

Students of the Troubles will recall that it was the Paras who opened fire on unarmed protesters in the Bogside area of Derry in 1972, killing 14 and injuring many more – an assault described by David Cameron 38 years on as “unjustified, unjustifiable and wrong”. It was, as a belated inquest is now hearing, the Paras who shot dead eleven unarmed civilians in the so-called Ballymurphy Massacre in West Belfast in 1971.

So what? say loyalists. To them, the regiment – one of whose veterans, “Soldier F,” is set to stand trial for his part in the Bloody Sunday killings – is beyond reproach. On the contrary, it occupies the pinnacle of their esteem, reflected in the graffito, Paras 14-IRA nil. Whatever it did was done in the line of duty, and the idea that one from its ranks should have to answer in court for his actions is proof that Britain can no longer be relied upon to safeguard Ulster from a Republican takeover.

Flags in the decades before the Troubles were interpreted as an assertion of strength and self-belief – the Orange State marking its territory. Today, as in Trump’s America, they are more and more a sign of acute insecurity: “Here we are and here we stand. Take us on if you dare.”

But, as big game hunters used to say, wounded animals are the most dangerous. So how will the hard men of Ulster, as they circle the wagons, view an England that is increasingly self-absorbed and appears to regard the Britishness of Ulster as an anomaly whose time is up? How will they respond if a border poll is held two years from now that sets out a road map towards Irish unity? What we can be sure of is that the deadly combination of demographic change and the reimposition, post-Brexit, of some form of Irish border means that Northern Ireland’s future remains potentially explosive.