Social Items

TPQ
Showing posts with label Revolutionary Unionism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Revolutionary Unionism. Show all posts

Dr John Coulter ✍ Northern Unionism must develop the all-island identity known as Revolutionary Unionism if it is to be in a strong ideological position to oppose any potential border poll.

Let’s remember the ‘Gud Auld Dayes’ when all of Ireland was in the United Kingdom. Unionism should stop being defensive, and go on the ideological offensive and sell the merits of being in the UK - and more!

Put bluntly - we need to convince Dublin that the future of the ‘Occupied Twenty-Six Counties’ lies within a Union of the British Isles.

There can be no doubting Sinn Fein will push for an Irish Unity referendum should Stormont be restored and Michelle O’Neill becomes First Minister and Sinn Fein also wins next year’s expected general election in the Republic.

Sinn Fein will base its entire propaganda campaign for a border poll on the assumption that Unionism will adopt a ‘Not An Inch’ and ‘No Surrender’ defensive position.

But Unionism needs to box clever politically and should take the case for the Union into any forum south of the border which is discussing Irish Unity.

Unionism should not be afraid to present its case rather than take the view ‘we’ll just have what we hold in the six counties’. It should go on the offensive ideologically and tactically and organise itself on an all-island basis, contesting Southern elections with an Irish Unionist Party, and setting up a Unionist Embassy in Dublin’s Leinster House.

Why should we be content with just a say in the running of six Irish counties when we could have a major say in the running of all 32 Irish counties if we convinced the Republic to join a new Union with the UK?

After all, the main Protestant church denominations - Presbyterian, Methodist and Anglican - are all organised on an all-island basis. One of Christianity’s fastest growing denominations, the Elim Pentecostal movement, was itself established in Monaghan in 1915.

In the Loyal Orders, the Orange especially is organised in Cavan, Monaghan, Leitrim and Donegal, with the latter hosting the increasingly popular parade at Rossnowlagh.

Following previous election outcomes, the entire Unionist family must face the reality that it must develop this all-island identity and strategy if it is to have an ideological relevance in a post-Brexit Ireland.

There is the unfortunate fear among some Unionists that Brexit could signal the start of the slippery slide to Irish unity. As a hardline Brexiteer myself, I take issue with this fear. It is Southern Ireland which long-term has more to fear from Brexit than Northern Ireland.

What Unionism must do – and do urgently – is to begin a debate about an all-island strategy as opposed to an All-Ireland focus. There is a radical difference between the two political concepts. Unionism should not be afraid to enter any debate on Irish Unity to oppose such an unworkable notion as a united Ireland.

In this respect, Unionism needs to begin considering the concepts of an ideology I have penned known as Revolutionary Unionism, built around the three agendas of one faith, one party, one Commonwealth.

The roots of Revolutionary Unionism lie in encouraging Unionists to ‘think outside the box’. For me, this was about mapping out a new ideology for Northern Unionism which took it politically beyond the realms of traditional slogans, such as ‘Not An Inch’ and ‘No Surrender’, and even beyond the geographical boundaries of Northern Ireland.

Before Revolutionary Unionism is dismissed as a fantasy, readers should take note that if there is one observation which I have made after 45 years in journalism, it is that Irish politics is about the art of the impossible. Today’s fantasy is tomorrow’s reality.

The late Rev Ian Paisley operating a power-sharing Executive at Stormont with Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness, the former leading IRA commander, and Sinn Fein operating a partitionist parliament at the Assembly are two such examples of fantasy becoming reality.

So what are the core directions of Revolutionary Unionism? Firstly, it seeks to re-establish the values of the Christian faith in Ireland; secondly, it believes that Unionism is best represented by a single political movement, simply called The Unionist Party, with a series of pressure groups to represent the broad church of pro-Union thinking.

The major plank of Revolutionary Unionism is the key role for the British Commonwealth and especially the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA), a political grouping comprising more than 50 national and regional parliaments, not all of them former parts of the old British Empire.

This new ideology is called ‘revolutionary’ for two key reasons – firstly, it aims to get Unionists thinking outside the box of the six counties of Northern Ireland; it wants Unionism to consider a 32-county role.

Secondly, the word comes historically from the Glorious Revolution of the late 17th century when the Protestant Ascendancy ruled all of Ireland after the Williamite war.

Revolutionary Unionism will become the ‘persuader’ of the Irish Republic that the future of Southern Ireland lies with it re-joining the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) to protect the 26 counties from the financial collapse.

Supporters of Irish Unity may currently crow about the supposed buoyant state of the Republic’s economy compared to Northern Ireland. But that’s before the Republic as an EU member state has to foot the massive bill for rebuilding Ukraine when the Russians eventually leave.

Post Brexit, Southern Ireland – like the UK – must remain part of a major economic power block to survive. Either Southern Ireland must receive massive cash injections from the EU, or it must join the UK in leaving the EU and form a Union of the British Isles with Scotland, Wales, England, Northern Ireland, as well as the Manx parliament along with the parliaments on the islands of Jersey and Guernsey.

This is the realistic Union which we Unionists must persuade the Republic to sign up to. And as part of this persuasion process, we Unionists should be prepared to confidently state our case right at the very heart of the Dublin administration.

Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter
Listen to commentator Dr John Coulter’s programme, Call In Coulter, every Saturday morning around 10.15 am on Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM. Listen online. 

Unionism Needs That Ideological Revolution - NOW!

Is history repeating itself, only now it is working class Loyalists who could cause the ‘start/stop’ mayhem with the trigger being the Northern Ireland Protocol. Political commentator Dr John Coulter sees 1968 starting all over again, only this time with Protestants as the ‘oppressed minority’.

While much has been penned in recent weeks concerning the meaning of the Loyalist Communities Council (LCC) ‘warning’ about the main loyalist paramilitaries withdrawing support for the Good Friday Agreement, while stressing that opposition to the Northern Ireland Protocol should be “peaceful and democratic”, I still fear that many could be misreading the mood of that general loyalist community.

I equally fully realise that in examining the potential of a loyalist terrorist backlash against the Protocol, I could myself ethically as a journalist be accused of scaremongering and ‘egging the pudding’, given my own well-known hard-line pro-Brexit views.

I will leave my heart-felt case for Southern Ireland leaving the European Union under Irexit for another day!

However, those colleagues who know me, also recognise that during my 43 years in journalism, I have not been afraid to address any potential ‘elephant in the room’ when it comes to Irish politics.

My aim in journalistically addressing the issue of potential loyalist violence is to offer democratic alternatives for working class loyalism so that the so-called ‘elephant’ is removed from the room.

To do so, it will be necessary for me as a journalist to stopping behaving like a political ostrich and ‘take my head out of the sand’ and face realities.

In 1994, when I formed my political think tank, the Revolutionary Unionist Convention, aimed at developing the ideology of Revolutionary Unionism (namely getting my fellow Unionists to think on an all-island basis), the long-term goal was to bring about a political fusion between middle class Unionism and working class loyalism in a completely non-violent arena.

The loophole in Revolutionary Unionism as an ideology is that it is still largely a middle class agenda. The ideological reality is that I do not want Revolutionary Unionism to become a 21st century version of the Unionist ‘Fur Coat Brigade’.

In short, what is needed is a new workable ideology for loyalism. Hence, in the coming weeks, I will be unveiling on The Pensive Quill the elements of what I will call Revolutionary Loyalism - a radical working class set of beliefs which hopefully will bridge the gulf which now exists between modern day Unionist parties and loyalism.

From the outset, the aim of Revolutionary Loyalism will not be to establish yet another pro-Union party.

I am also acutely aware that I may fuel the very topic I am seeking to investigate, expose or analyse. It was a thought which constantly troubled me during my investigations into the activities of the Far Right in Northern Ireland.

With racism such an emotive topic in the media, when I look back on the articles I had published in the Belfast News Letter, the Irish Daily Star and Searchlight magazine, ethically was I actually fuelling the very evil I sought to analyse and expose?

For the Far Right, any publicity is good publicity. So can the same ethical dilemma be posed of me in my analysis of militant loyalism?

The same ethical dilemma faced me in the late 1980s when I began investigating allegations of collusion between British security forces and loyalist death squads. I was emphatically told by colleagues and sources not to pursue that topic. I did and paid the price.

As I have mentioned in a previous article on the subject of violent loyalism, what concerns me is that people are basing their judgement of loyalism’s capabilities to mount a terror campaign against the Protocol based on those who ran the terror gangs at the time of the original Combined Loyalist Military Command ceasefires of 1994.

A lot of water has flowed under the political bridges since 1994. Now in 2021, ironically the centenary year of the founding of Northern Ireland, Unionism as an ideology electorally finds itself in a minority if we take the past three elections in Northern Ireland into consideration.

I grew up in the heartland of Bannside which became the late Rev Ian Paisley’s Stormont seat in 1970. Bannside was also part of the wider North Antrim Westminster constituency, the Commons seat which Paisley senior captured from the Ulster Unionists in 1970.

His success was a fusion of two, then voiceless, sections of the pro-Union community - working class Protestants and Christian evangelicals and fundamentalists. If ever there was a political shotgun marriage, this was it - but it worked for Paisleyism!

When Paisley senior launched his Protestant Unionist movement in Bannside and North Antrim, The Unionist Party was dominated by the so-called ‘Fur Coat Brigade’ of middle and upper class Protestants. ‘Big House’ Unionists and wealthy farming Unionists were the controlling factions in the Unionist Party in that region - certainly not the working class Protestants who lived in the various urban and rural housing estates. Many of those working class estates didn’t even have inside toilets at that time.

In those days, The Unionist Party still held its ‘public’ meetings in Orange Halls, but admission to many of these meetings was by ticket only.

During my time studying part-time at Queen’s University in the 1990s, I recall interviewing a local North Antrim Paisleyite activist who told me how he disrupted meetings of The Unionist Party.

He said they were supplied with the invitation tickets by upper and middle class members of the Party worried by Terence O’Neill and later James Chichester-Clark’s liberalising policies. As a working class loyalist activist, there was no way he could gain access to The Unionist Party’s meetings without the help of those upper and middle class ‘Fur Coat Brigade’ sympathisers within the Party.

The source left me in no doubt that there was a link between middle class Unionism and working class loyalism. The long-term results of the loyalist campaign was to drive the ‘Fur Coat Brigade’ out of the Orange Halls and out of Unionist Party activity.

I simply pose the question, given the unrest in present day loyalism over the Protocol, could the same situation arise again - namely, that middle class Unionists could get working class loyalists to create political mayhem?

More importantly, what should middle class Unionism do to keep the working class loyalist pot from boiling over given those warnings from the LCC? In short, how do we make this ‘elephant in the room’ either ‘leave the room’ or ‘sit and behave itself’? Like it or not, the thorny issue of loyalist resentment over the Protocol must be practically addressed.

The answer is to be found in how middle and upper class Unionism mobilised the Protestant working class at the turn of the 20th century as the anti-Home Rule movement gathered momentum. The upper and middle class Protestants formed a network of Unionist Clubs, mainly across Ulster, where working class Protestants from the pro-Union community could air their grievances vocally about Home Rule.

Ironically, it was the messages coming from these working class meetings which prompted Carson and Craig as the main leaders of the Unionist community that an armed militia - the original Ulster Volunteer Force - was needed in the event of Home Rule being imposed on Ireland.

The same strategy was employed in 1985 by middle class Unionism in the aftermath of the signing of the Anglo-Irish Agreement. That strategy spawned the network of the Ulster Clubs movement, fronted by then leading Portadown Orange District officer Alan Wright, whom I interviewed for the Belfast News Letter about the role of the Clubs.

In short, if the supposed unity being demonstrated by the various Unionist parties in their opposition to the Protocol is to be maintained, then working class loyalists need to have a clear voice, and by working class loyalists, that does not simply mean those who would be aligned to the various paramilitary groups represented by the LCC.

In a previous article, I noted the success of the pressure group Ulster Vanguard before it decided to become a political party. The current Unionist leaderships of the various parties now need to establish a network of revamped Unionist Clubs across Northern Ireland and the Southern Irish border counties to allow working class loyalists to voice their concerns.

Unionism needs not only to speak with one voice, it also needs to move forward in step. Otherwise a situation will emerge whereby working class loyalists ask - which Unionist party, leader or faction actually speaks for the Union?

If the middle class Unionist leadership does not accurately feel the pulse of working class loyalism, that creates a gap which can be filled by militants.

Worse still, if the “peaceful and democratic” Unionist Clubs network is not established, working class loyalists can get the false impression they are a ‘voiceless community’ as sections of the Catholic community felt in 1968 and 1969 … and we all know how that ended up.

Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter
Listen to commentator Dr John Coulter’s programme, Call In Coulter, every Saturday morning around 10.15 am on Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM. Listen online at http://radio.garden/listen/sunshine-104-9fm/tBZsuX1o 

Middle Class Unionists And Working Class Loyalists ➖ A Potential Lethal Concoction

The introduction of an all-island military National Service is at the economic heart of Revolutionary Unionism. In this latest Fearless Flying Column today, controversial commentator Dr John Coulter outlines how his ideology will create thousands of jobs in a post Brexit Ireland.

Revolutionary Unionism - The Only Workable Solution

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)