More than seven years ago, the first collective statement from loyalist paramilitaries since the 1994 ceasefire was read out on their behalf by the former Church of Ireland Archbishop Alan Harper in the Linen Hall Library in Belfast.
Dubbed a Loyalist Declaration of Transformation, it received widespread media coverage and was welcomed by the then taoiseach Leo Varadkar as “a commitment to ensure loyalist communities are at the centre of Northern Ireland’s peace and political transformation”.
No such support was offered by the British prime minister or the secretary of state for Northern Ireland of the day. Indeed, the British government did nothing then, or since, to build on the declaration’s contents or see any value in what it might mean.
Perhaps little remembered now, the declaration had come following months of close engagement with a small team of interlocutors and the paramilitary leaderships of the loyalist paramilitary groups – the UDA, the UVF and the Red Hand Commando.
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Finalised and agreed over a day of intense discussion, it offered a basis for change and its intention was to make clear a new direction away from paramilitarism towards communal and social development.
Ignored by the British government after it was released, to my knowledge, no British representative ever sought afterwards to meet the interlocutors about what they had done, how they had done it and where it might lead.
That was, and remains, a lost opportunity.
Those opportunities briefly offered by the declaration were lost in the serious tensions over Brexit and the Northern Ireland protocol and were then compounded by the havoc of the Covid pandemic, while the loyalist leaderships became distracted by internal problems.
Momentum was lost. Now that an expert is to be appointed to report on the dismantling of Northern Ireland’s paramilitary groups, it would be a mistake not to revisit the 2018 declaration and to talk to those who brought it about.
Clearly the leaderships trusted those interlocutors. Paramilitary leaders do not make collective public statements of intent too often. They took the declaration very, very seriously, even if others did not.
A large chunk of the declaration addressed ongoing criminality. However, it is understandable that many would dismiss such comments as a cynical ploy to deflect attention from behaviour that had continued unabated, or grown, since 1998.
Unfortunately, the scale of criminality today and since, involving loyalist paramilitaries – everything from drugs, to controlling prostitution, to the extortion that too often happens in their own communities – gives only further credence to those doubts.
Nevertheless, the best way to isolate, expose and deal with criminals is through changes that isolate them in their own communities, backed and supported by the Police Service of Northern Ireland, from its highest levels to its lowest.
Certainly, the absence of such an agreement serves criminals better than if one were in play, where structures and mechanisms could help identify and charge those who wantonly impose coercion and misery on their communities.
If a new declaration is to be agreed now, loyalist paramilitary leaders must work hand-in-hand with the police. However, more than that is needed. New measures to improve education within loyalist communities are urgently required, as is more investment.
In addition, loyalist communities must be represented politically by their own – an outcome sadly lacking since the Belfast Agreement, even if it began with hope under David Ervine and Gary McMichael.
But it is not just about loyalist leaders. Unionist political leaders of all colours, many of whom have long ignored loyalist communities, must work to make such areas more confident, to offer hope of better days.
This abdication of social and political responsibility by London – even if the blame has to be shared with unionist political leaders – has contributed significantly to the deprivation, the sense of loss and the growing anxieties and expressions of anger in loyalist areas.
This must change.
Equally, loyalist paramilitaries, too, must begin the path of honest self-examination about their role in past bloodshed. Such a process must run in parallel to a similar course within republican communities. For both, there is still a long journey to travel.
The Civic Forum that was legislated for and ran during the first couple of years after the Belfast Agreement should be reborn, but the idea of bringing communities together in such ways should not be confined to Northern Ireland.
Two more should be created, one to bring communities from all parts of the island of Ireland together, and the second to look at an even more neglected relationship, the one between the island of Ireland and Britain.
The three-stranded structure of the Belfast Agreement should not just be one for politicians, it should be one for the people they serve, too. In ways that can build ties, share experiences and increase understanding of the other. And it must involve loyalist communities at every turn.
Everything must be conditional on paramilitary groups finally disappearing nearly 30 years after the conflict they were involved in was said to have ended. That work will not be easy. The leaderships will require support to achieve it.
The difficulties should be underestimated by no one, even if most have long since lost patience with endless debate surrounding the matter. New paramilitary groups will have to be crushed decisively and swiftly.
Equally, every funding pledge made by London, or, if that happens, Dublin, must be linked finally with proven changes on the ground, not just promises. There can be no repeat of the endless government grants of the past.
When it comes, the report from the soon-to-be appointed expert must be hard-hitting and extensive. Tens of millions will be needed, if not more, over the years to finally eradicate the scourge of paramilitarism.
The human cost and all the implications of that, in places long ignored by those in power, will be much greater if, yet again, an opportunity for change is missed and little is achieved. The chance cannot be thrown away again.
Graham Spencer is Emeritus Professor of Social and Political Conflict at the University of Portsmouth.
