Barry Devlin

Political unionism is tearing itself apart again, and the spectacle is extraordinary Carla Lockhart is leaving the DUP because its leadership won't bring down Stormont over Drumcree. Bryson swans around Stormont as though he has an electoral mandate, in his wonderful leisure suit, while Jim Allister is back on Nolan pontificating about the IRA. WTF is going on; it’s like a reality show gone bad. Jimbo appears to have dusted off the old playbook from his Ulster Resistance rally days. Decades later, the IRA and Sinn Féin still dominate his political sermons. Yet where is the equivalent outrage about the UVF, UDA and the continuing criminality of loyalist paramilitaries? Even after the revelations this week around bombs and ammunition finds, Loyalist organisations murdered innocent people too, Jimbo, just an FYI. Today, paramilitary intimidation, organised crime and illegal weapons remain serious problems in the very Protestant communities these individuals claim to defend. Jimbo, terrorism is NOT culture simply because its perpetrators wrap themselves in a Union flag. Then there's Saint Carla, apparently imagining she can resurrect an old-style unionism that bypasses nationalism and treats Catholic voices as an inconvenience. Carla, this isn't the NI of the 1970s. Catholics and nationalists are equal citizens. Sinn Féin is the largest party in the Assembly, and no amount of political grandstanding can erase its democratic mandate. Power-sharing means sharing power, not demanding that the other community disappear whenever you dislike its politics. And the irony of Carla preaching unionist unity while walking out of her own party is remarkable. Meanwhile, Bryson continues his endless campaign of confrontation, seemingly mistaking political attention for democratic legitimacy. He has even dumped the suit and is circulating Stormont in a fecking tracksuit. What an extraordinary fecking picture: Lockhart splitting the DUP, Allister revisiting the arguments of the 1980s, and Bryson positioning himself at the centre of yet another confrontation. All while working-class unionist communities continue to suffer from paramilitary intimidation, deprivation and criminal influence. Where are the practical solutions? Where is the sustained outrage about loyalist criminality? Where are the plans for housing, healthcare, jobs and education? NI has spent decades trying to move beyond the politics of fear, division and sectarian confrontation. The question for Lockhart and Allister is whether their politics can deliver anything more constructive than another argument about who has betrayed unionism, and when will someone with a moral backbone and some principle try to oust these seriously bad actors? Jesus, surely people deserve better than this pantomime