Opinion

Analysis: DUP has a duty of care to loyalist communities

Pictures of armed and masked men opposing the Irish Sea border.
Pictures of armed and masked men opposing the Irish Sea border. Pictures of armed and masked men opposing the Irish Sea border.

SENIOR members of the DUP meeting with the Loyalist Communities Council should come as no surprise to anyone who has been paying attention to the current mood among sections of unionism.

Coming after a controversial NIO meeting with senior loyalists, there will be those who will criticise Arlene Foster, Nigel Dodds and Gavin Robinson for holding talks with what is seen as the public face of a number of paramilitary groups.

That the top table of the DUP found time during a crucial time in pandemic planning to carry out what is effectively loyalist outreach will also raise eyebrows.

But anyone with their ear to the ground will know that loyalist anger at the Brexit protocol and sea border - which they see as a stepping stone to an economic united Ireland - is growing.

That there has been no manifestation of that beyond hoax threats and graffiti should not lull governments into a false sense of security.

There may well be limited appetite for any direct violent actions, but that is not to say that several hundred people could not be mobilised to block ports and cause major disruption to trade.

As elected representatives in many hard-line loyalist areas, the DUP have a duty towards that section of their electorate.

In the past loyalists have accused unionist politicians of only speaking to them clandestinely, through back door meetings.

Just as Sinn Féin would be expected to calm tensions of a similar nature in republican areas, it falls to the DUP to ensure that the rising anger in loyalist communities stays firmly within the political sphere and does not spill out onto the streets.

The meeting comes as the European Research Group (ERG), which is close in thinking to the Westminster DUP team, released a statement saying the protocol was having a "profound and negative effect".

But political pressure alone is not enough to change the DNA of the protocol and satisfy unionism.

And so one has to wonder what part this has all played in the latest Downing Street announcement of a new cabinet committee to focus on the future of the union.

The Cabinet Union Strategy Committee will be chaired by Prime Minister Boris Johnson and form a strategic agenda focused on "keeping the UK together".

DUP ally Michael Gove will also play a part, along with the secretaries for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and chief Brexit negotiator Lord Frost.

If this is just another one of Boris Johnson's trinkets aimed at keeping the DUP content and distracted, it may not be enough to quell the growing political pressure from his own back benches, the very people who helped him into Downing Street.