THE utter failure of unionism to address in any meaningful way the spiralling problem of sectarian and racist violence in its midst is as cynical as it is shameful.
Catholic families and families from ethnic minorities are driven from their homes in North Belfast, while in Ballymena six vehicles are set alight outside the place of residence of members of the Filipino community.
The grubby truth is that there is an appetite within unionism for the kind of Reform UK/Tommy Robinson nativist nationalism that is currently sweeping English cities and towns. There is, too, a responsibility on unionist politicians to say something about the violence being visited upon Catholics and ethnic minorities. But what they have had to say so far would, to be completely frank about it, be better left unsaid. For when a boilerplate condemnation of attacks on families is accompanied by a recitation of far-right talking points dresssed up as ‘legitimate concerns’, not only does that do nothing to stem the rising tide of hate – it actively encourages it.
What we should be seeing are very public rejections of those who take it upon themselves to act as gatekeepers of housing developments. What we should be hearing are ringing and unambiguous rejections of those usurping the role of statutory agencies. But we see is no practical action, and what we hear are statements whose side-of-the-mouth endorsements of far-right sentiments ring much louder than the mild condemnations of violence and hate which precede them.
What kind of society is it that we inhabit when loyalist paramilitaries – in this case the UDA – are consulted about housing in the very areas on whose throat the paramilitaries have their boot? What kind of society is it that we inhabit when months after outrageous outbreaks of riotous hatred, homes in Ballymena are still festooned with posters either marking the resident out as a ‘local’ or displaying loyalty to king and crown?
The answer is that it is the kind of society where such behaviour is not only condoned, but actively encouraged. The kind of society where Catholics and ethnic minorities are ethnically cleansed from some districts, allowed to live in others with terms and conditions laid down by thugs and gangsters.
The attitude of statutory agencies towards loyalist paramilitaries must now come in for a root and branch appraisal. Neither the UDA nor the UVF should be within an ass’s roar of any conversations about housing and yet they are routinely included in their role as ‘stakeholders’. And not only should their input neither be sought nor considered, the directing of monies towards these groups and their various fronts should be cut off immediately, whether that funding be local, national or European.
Racists and sectarian thugs cannot shoot, maim and extort by night and the next morning be sat round the table influencing the future of the very people they are intimidating.
