A very British Coup…6 Feb 2003

Tommy McKearney

Recent happenings in the world of Ulster Loyalism leave one with a strange feeling that there was more manipulation of the outcome than meets the eye. The chain of events that has led to the death of the powerful UDA figure John Gregg and the subsequent flight into exile of the Shankill Road's hard-line 'C' Company are reminiscent of a fast moving B-Movie. While it is still much too early to predict either a definite end to the feud or a new and less blood-thirsty departure for the UDA, the largest loyalist group is now faced with re-evaluating its old strategy of violent aggression coupled with an aversion to conventional politics.

Until quite lately, the UDA and its various associates posed a very real threat to the Good Friday Agreement – and by extension British Government policy for Ireland. By pursuing an ongoing campaign of sectarian violence, they were making it difficult for the Provisional IRA to make the bold gesture demanded by David Trimble (and Richard Hass). They were moreover, keeping a section of the unionist community in a constant state of flux by encouraging a climate of tension and resistance to change.

The problem for the authorities was that, unlike anti-Good Friday Agreement Republicans, the UDA was a large and significant force in Northern Irish life. Their size and insistence on maintaining an ongoing yet relatively low intensity campaign of violence made them difficult to eradicate and they remained a constant ‘stone in the British shoe’.

That was until someone advised Johnny Adair to try and make himself supreme commander of the federally organised UDA. Poorer counsel it would be difficult to imagine leading inevitably to his expulsion and a subsequent feud. There was of course one further piece of guidance offered to the Adair camp that proved even more destructive than the original suggestion to launch a take-over bid and that was to kill the loyalist icon John Gregg.

Any loyalist that had served a prison term for attempting to kill Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams was always going to have mythical status in his own community. Moreover, he would enjoy a type of cross–factional admiration that no amount of internal in-fighting could destroy. One such person in loyalist circles was John Gregg and the loyalists that organised his assassination were either blind fools or were mischievously and calamitously misadvised.

The outcome is, however, that the hard-line and aggressive leader of the UDA’s South Antrim section is removed from the stage and almost simultaneously the Shankill Road’s ‘C’ Company is also rendered hors de combat.  As PSNI Chief Constable Hugh Orde said, there will now be a respite for loyalist communities and UDA supporters now have a chance to consider whether to continue with arms or join the ‘Process’.

The British Government and their agencies could hardly have done better had they planned it themselves.

Tommy McKearney…6 Feb 2003