ONE of the DUP’s many cunning plans to oppose the 2012 decision to stop flying the union jack at City Hall 24/7 was to try and get the flag up permanently at the nearby Cenotaph. The thinking was, I imagine, that at least there would be a union jack visible at City Hall all day long, even it if was a bit less prominent.

If I asked you who nixed that particular idea you’d probably come up with the usual suspects:

•Sinn Féin/IRA.
•Alliance.
•The SDLP.
•The Moonies.
•International Rescue.

But you’d be wrong; badly wrong. The idea was binned because it was rejected out of hand by the organisation with responsibility for the Garden of Remembrance, the organisation most closely associated with remembrance – or perhaps I should say British remembrance. The Royal British Legion told the DUP to catch themselves on. They said the site was “sacrosanct” and should not be politicised.

The suggestion was the brainchild of Councillor Lee Reynolds, who today as the Ulster Scots Commissioner is celebrating the first Ulster Scots street sign going up in Belfast. As far as I know the street sign will be in place 24/7.

No doubt Lee had war-gamed vigorous opposition to his plan from the Pan-Nationalist Front, but I very much doubt if he expected to have the carpet pulled from under his marching shoes by the Poppy People.

“As the nation’s custodian of remembrance, the legion is committed to helping everyone understand the importance of remembrance so those sacrifices are never forgotten,” the RBL said in an indignant statement. “Remembrance of all who have falled should unite, not divide. It is sacrosanct and should not be politicised in any way. We would therefore oppose the Garden of Remembrance becoming involved in the flag debate for that reason, and in the interests of keeping remembrance free of controversy, cannot agree to any change to the current policy of flag-flying at the cenotaph.”

It was a salutary reminder to people who have become depressingly used to politicians using the past to score cheap political points    that for the majority of people the act of remembrance is a very sacred and precious thing.

This blast came out of the past as I considered the awful pickle that the Drumcree mob has landed itself in. I had hesitated to use a word as nakedly pejorative as mob, but since it appears to have taken on a new and benign meaning in the past fortnight I’m happy to fall in line with the zeitgeist. The new definition of mob, according to the Drumcree mob, is any gathering of more than 10 people, regardless of whether they’re blocking the road, on the side of it, listening to music, drinking tea or singing and dancing. The new meaning of the word rabble we will leave for another day.

The Brethren at Drumcree brought the DUP, Lee and the Cenotaph to mind. Back then the biggest unionist party assumed that it only had to say the word flag, never mind wave one, and the unionist community would dutifully fall in behind. Didn’t happen. Such is the moral authority of the Legion that the attempt to shift the flag protest to a place of remembrance was immediately dropped, never to be spoken of again. So, in many ways, the DUP and Portadown District have made an assumption that the unionist and loyalist masses would make their presence and their voices heard once the decision was taken to light the now damp and fusty Drumcree touchpaper.

The former News Letter editor Ben Lowry, who during his time at the paper was not known for his reticence on the national question, said on Radio Ulster’s Talkback that a significant number of unionists he’d spoken to thought the Drumcree project a terrible idea. And how right he was.

In the middle of the crisis, the East Belfast loyalist activist Moore Holmes – who I suppose can best be understood as Jamie Bryson without the humility – urged support for a gala support day for the Drumcree 35, as nobody except Moore called the Drumcree Orange. It was an arse-clenchingly embarrassing flop; it would have been a flop even had the suggestion been a unique and original one. It wasn’t. It was a direct response to a massive turn-out on the Garvaghy Road the previous Saturday, and standing as it did in direct contrast to that powerful display of nationalist unity, it shrivelled into a nothingness of its own unprecedented scale. When you’ve tried to mobilise the people and you end up with more bouncy castles than people you know, you’ve got a serious problem. And when your event is more embarrassing than Ron McDowell’s AI crowd pic of the previous week, you know that the word serious is no longer up to the task of describing your problem.

As the days progressed and the sigh of indifference from Loyal Ulster became deeper and longer, the DUP began to get the message. When he comes to write his memoirs, leader Gavin Robinson will be unlikely to devote a chapter to Drumcree ’26, but what he does write about it will likely be dominated by the one good decision he’s made in the past 17 days: Not going to Portadown for a photo opp. That was a big decision – and it can now be seen to have been the right one. This is a guy whose devotion to a good snap was such that he passed through his constituency of East Belfast – the most mural-heavy constituency in this Blessed Kingdom – to get his picture taken at Gaza graffiti on the Falls Road. That’s outstanding commitment to the power of an image, and as they ruefully reflect on another Drumcree defeat, the Portadown Brethren may well be wondering why the leader of unionism left the M1 utterly untroubled by his presence.
Into the vacuum left by the DUP big beasts stepped Carla Lockhart, dubbed ‘the Queen of Ulster’ by the Portadown District’s paralegal adviser. To call it a thankless task would be to do an appalling disservice to the extent to which her bosses left her hanging.

Belfast Telegraph political correspondent Suzanne Breen told Mark Carruthers on BBCNI’s The View that she’d been briefed that Carla felt “abandoned”; in short order TUV leader Jim Allister archly refused to be drawn on whether or not he had had any conversations with Carla about joining his outfit.

So here stands Loyal Ulster because it can do no other:
•No Orange feet on Garvaghy Road.
•The prospect of a future parade as attractive to the Parades Commission, the NIO and the PSNI as a B-Specials tribute at the Busy Bee.
•Loyal Ulster having spoken with its feet.
•The DUP split in its historic heartland.
•Nationalism united around Garvaghy with Michelle O’Neill as its undisputed and beaming head.

As he considers this appalling vista, Master Bryson – Mantelpiece Rasputin to Portadown District’s besashed Romanovs – may be tempted to console himself with the thought that the DUP-SF mutual hatred dial has moved from 10 to 11. But he’s now the face of a loss. He can bloviate all he wants about live law and moral victories, but on the working class streets of Portadown and Belfast where King Billy adorns the walls, victories do not come with asterisks. That white horse is not rearing proudly because of a moral victory over King James or because the courts took his side.
Loyal Ulster does not do nuance when it comes to parades.