UNIONIST POLITICIANS need to continue to engage with working-class loyalist communities to ensure they are not exploited by extremists intent on sowing the seeds of violence, a leading loyalist analyst has urged.
Frankie Gallagher of the Ulster Political Research Group expressed hope that the DUP, under the revitalised leadership of Peter Robinson, would engage with working-class loyalist communities who currently saw little benefit for them in the peace process.
A lack of investment along with poor social conditions was making working-class loyalists who had a “political disconnection” vulnerable to exploitation by extremists, as happened last month on the Short Strand, the Newtownards Road and Pottinger, he said.
“When you have loyalist communities with the worst educational attainment in Northern Ireland and young people coming out schools semi-illiterate, when there’s no ambition to better themselves, then those communities are going to be exposed.
“They are going to be vulnerable to being exploited by those extremists who would use violence.
“Violent extremism fills that vacuum and it’s our job as communal and civic leaders and politically motivated activists to try and fill that vacuum.”
Mr Gallagher was speaking at Scoil Shamhraidh na Saoirse – a Sinn Féin summer school in Ballyvourney, Co Cork, where he said republicans and loyalists must become the guardians of each others’ civil rights to ensure the peace process works.
“It’s my duty to prove to people on the Falls Road, people from a republican background, that I will watch their back while I’m on watch and they have to do the same for me so by that process, we have to become guardians of each others rights.”
