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From International Socialism, No. 62, September 1973, pp. 30–31.
Transcribed by Christian Høgsbjerg, with thanks to Paul Blackledge.
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
The UVF; an anatomy of Loyalist rebellion
David Boulton
Gill and Macmillan, 50p
SOCIALISTS have generally had to watch the appearance, disappearance and re-appearance of ultra-loyalist groups in the Six Counties from a safe distance. David Boulton’s book has the merit that it brings us a little way in from the sidelines and throws some light on the (often murky) depths of working-class loyalism.
The book is written in a manner, however, that prohibits any effective piecing together of the material offered us. It is in that close, detailed narrative style – with a hint of radicalism – beloved of ‘serious Sundays’. Boulton makes a few nods in a radical direction, towards the Official Republican Movement, ‘Marxism’, and the need for working-class unity. But these are fairly sparse gestures with little real meaning.
He never begins to explain what good might come out of working-class unity, or the breaking of the ties between loyalist workers and the Unionist ruling class. Indeed, he makes some extraordinary judgements on explicitly working-class tendencies within loyalism, suggesting, for instance, that Paisley is interested in creating ‘a new Unionism based on the Protestant working class alone’. Nothing that Paisley has done – certainly not his present posturings – and nothing Boulton has told us could support that suggestion.
It seems to go with that vaguely radical, close narrative style that it sees conspiracies everywhere. The main movers of events are small, determined groups of men, prepared to use violence and corruption to attain their ends. Boulton really stands a Unionist argument on its head. Instead of having the IRA plotting to overthrow the Northern state, and setting up the civil rights movement in order to do this, you have the hardline loyalists, led by Paisley, setting up militias, and ‘civil’ fronts, causing disruption and a militant republican response, in order to maintain the sectarian Six County state.
Having got hold of details of meetings in small back rooms, the journalist has to convince himself and his readers that these meetings have a significant impact on events. Boulton’s major weakness in trying to explain what has happened is that he cuts the back-room meetings, the UVF, and other related bodies, off from the established right of the Unionist Party. The responses of that right certainly played a crucial role in precipitating the Northern crisis. They were the ones who had most to lose by a dismantling of the Orange machine of patronage and corruption. You don’t need to know about the UVF to know what they did.
The other major omission from Boulton’s book is any analysis of how British imperialism acquiesced in the development of the ultra-loyalist groupings. He does hint at this – but little more. The British government and army have known the policies, personalities, and activities of the extreme loyalists. In the pest year they have sat by and let them carry on the ‘sectarian’ murders. They have more recently deployed an entirely useless ‘Task Force’ against sectarian murderers, but still watch over the acquittal of the majority of those loyalists who are brought to court on murder charges. Boulton does not equip his readers to begin explaining that.
Read the book in any case. It can only add to your information about the North. Treat the conclusions and the interpretation with great caution.
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Last updated on 2 March 2015