Opinion

Tom Kelly: Redundant rhetoric needs to be binned then buried

Tom Kelly

Tom Kelly

Tom Kelly is an Irish News columnist with a background in politics and public relations. He is also a former member of the Policing Board.

LCC chair David Campbell and David McNarry protest outside the Irish Secretariat in Belfast over the NI Protocol. Picture by Hugh Russell.
LCC chair David Campbell and David McNarry protest outside the Irish Secretariat in Belfast over the NI Protocol. Picture by Hugh Russell. LCC chair David Campbell and David McNarry protest outside the Irish Secretariat in Belfast over the NI Protocol. Picture by Hugh Russell.

There are two images from last week’s media which caught my attention.

The first made me laugh out loud and the second left me with a sense of bewilderment.

The black and white image of Sir Edward Carson on a Union flag festooned platform regally addressing tens of thousands of covenanters in Belfast in 1912 was iconic. The photo of loyalist blogger Jamie Bryson addressing some protesters outside a PSNI station atop a blue bin was comedic. A bin seemed an almost appropriate platform. A recycling bin too. Perhaps a subliminal nod to a ‘green’ agenda?

The second image was a photo showing a permanently serious David Campbell, chair of the Loyalist Communities Council (LCC) accompanied by former UKIP MLA, David McNarry, in a two man protest against the NI Protocol.

Between them they held a “woe is me” type banner outside the offices of Irish government officials in Belfast. They described their protest as symbolic. It soon turned shambolic when Gareth McCord, brother of UVF murder victim Raymond McCord, confronted Campbell telling him outright that the LCC and those they purport to represent had no widespread support in this society. Campbell looked distinctly uncomfortable.

McNarry was reported in the News Letter as saying had the Covid restrictions not been in place both he and Campbell would have been “two of a hundred thousand people on the streets”. Thus my bewilderment. Cul de sac politics simply don’t work. Eventually they lead to a backwards walk of shame.

Both Campbell and McNarry seemed not to recognise the irony of making their protest outside the ‘permanent’ secretariat offices of the Irish government. The Irish government presence in Northern Ireland has been constant since the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement. It wasn’t run of town as claimed at mega loyalist rallies in Belfast.

Campbell is a former chair of the Ulster Unionist Party and before his incarnation as a UKIP member McNarry was also an Ulster Unionist. Therefore both are experienced and indeed astute enough to know that mass loyalist protests eventually alienate mainstream unionist voters and run out of steam. And why? Because street agitation inevitably led to attacks on the police and to acts of random mindless violence which was beyond the control and sentiment of the organisers. It also tends to inflame the intensity of interface sectarianism and tension.

Campbell, McNarry and Bryson have called for any protocol protests to be peaceful. That is to be welcomed but like Pandora’s box, once opened calamity often follows.

However much angst they have worked themselves and others up to, the NI Protocol isn’t a totemic matter which will have long term term traction for mass protest. Issues around the protocol are easing by the day. Most have been already solved. There are no empty supermarket shelves. Hauliers are getting to grips with the post Brexit paper work. Local companies are sourcing products either within the north or from the Republic of Ireland. The dreary skies of Fermanagh remain so. The protocol will remain just as will the British passports of those who hold them within Northern Ireland.

All that said, the potential for violence manipulated by malevolent forces within sections of both dissident republicans and malcontent loyalists remains. Clearly there are those out there seeking to destabilise Northern Ireland and those are not just dissident groups. There are also loyalist paramilitaries seeking to reassert their authority.

The NIO attempts to buy off loyalist groups is ill conceived. A former UVF paramilitary gave an impassioned warning for young loyalists to stay away from street protests and to resist grooming by senior paramilitaries. In graphic detail he outlined their vice-like grip on young recruits.

The dissident republicans and loyalists share the same blood lust. They are morally bankrupt and peddle only misery. They live in sectarian bubbles trying to terrorise and extort their local communities.

Redundant jingoistic rhetoric doesn’t need recycled; it needs binned and then buried.