Peter Hain may well be thinking of declaring the UVF ceasefire to be ended but it's clear that the Orange Order itself shades into paramilitarism. The Orange Order's call for supporters to take to the streets had been clearly answered not just by its supporters but also by armed paramilitary groups, who evidently had guns and blast bombs at the ready. Chief Constable Sir Hugh Orde is in no doubt that the rioters intended to kill police officers. The unrepentant Orange Order said police actions had been "brutal and heavy handed". "All we would say is that if what we saw was policing, it was policing at its worst."
Meanwhile there is no sign whatever of the political leaders of Ulster unionism criticising or distancing themselves from the loyal institutions. They are instead content to lay all the blame squarely at the Parades Commission. It seems that since the IRA's declaration to disarm itself, unionism has retreated into sullen oppositionism and seems incapable of doing anything remotely positive.
Update
Maurice Hayes notes how working class loyalists have been deprived of a voice after the successes of the DUP pushed the fringe loyalist parties and their leaders like David Ervine, Gary McMichael and Davy Adams even further towards the margins. Many working class protestants feel unrepresented by the Ulster Unionists as it is too middle class, yet feel too secularist to find a comfortable home in the DUP.
These are difficult times for the Protestant working class. The industries they worked in have collapsed and deficiencies in the school system make them less able to take the new jobs that are available. The Shankill Road was wrecked by the planners before the Provos left their bombs in it and it is no accident that the main trouble spots of the weekend were the soulless estates housing those relocated from unionist heartlands. These are frightened insecure people who are striking out blindly in the only language they know. They need political leadership and they are not getting it.
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