UDA and UVF agree to truce on terror flags in return for government cash

https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/sunday-life/news/uda-and-uvf-agree-to-truce-on-terror-flags-in-return-for-government-cash/a1574887747.html

Funds for projects gangs support behind huge reduction in paramilitary banners around Carrick and Newtownabbey

Loyalist terror bosses have struck a deal with government officials not to put paramilitary flags in return for their projects being funded.

Details about the agreement emerged after it was revealed Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council handed over £80,500 of ratepayers’ cash to 23 community organisations for bonfire night celebrations.

The flags arrangement with South East Antrim (SEA) UDA and the UVF relates to a separate government funding package in the same area.

Sources in both groups told Sunday Life that projects which the crime gangs support received cash in return for loyalists not putting up paramilitary flags ahead of the Twelfth.

Normally at this time of year large towns like Newtownabbey, Larne and Carrickfergus are festooned in UDA and UVF flags. But as of today’s date only a small number have gone up next to bonfire sites in the east Antrim area.

While the absence of UVF and UDA flags has been welcomed, some loyalists have expressed concerns that it has come at a price.

One told us: “It’s just another form of paramilitary extortion — only this time it’s taxpayers who are the target.“The UDA and UVF said, ‘Give our community groups money and the flags won’t go up’, and that is just what the government did.”

Sunday Life cannot name the organisations in receipt of the cash for legal reasons, but several have connections to the SEA UDA and UVF.

Insiders explained how the UVF was keen on the flag deal from the beginning and that the SEA UDA surprisingly took little persuading.“

The SEA UDA is under a new leadership since Gary Fisher (former long-time leader) nearly died from a heart attack last summer,” said our source.

“The new bosses are trying to give the impression that they are moving away from criminality so they agreed not to put up any UDA flags this summer.

​“They have also allowed two masked men UDA murals in Rathcoole and Monkstown to be replaced with portraits of the royal family, but it’s all a move just to get the police off their backs.”

“The only flags that have gone up in east Antrim have been Union and Ulster ones,” added the source.

“That is all you will see in places which would have been coming down with paramilitary flags in the past, like the O’Neill Road roundabout in Newtownabbey, the entrances to the Rathcoole estate, Rathfern and the main road into Carrick.”

However, not all loyalists are happy with the flag agreement, with some hardliners in the SEA UDA accusing its new leadership of selling out.

“Some of the men have been complaining that the new leadership has been bought off by the government just like the rest of the UDA,” explained an insider. “In fairness they have a point because this would never have happened under Fisher’s watch.

“The new bosses have seen what happened to him, how much him and his drug dealers were hammered by the Paramilitary Crime Task Force, and realised they had to play ball or they would get the same.”

Fisher suffered his heart attack just as the National Crime Agency took his daughter Naomi Lough to court to seize her north Down holiday home which they alleged was bought with the proceeds of her dad’s criminality.

Last month, the taskforce raided several drinking dens in Newtownabbey in what it said was an operation targeting suspected SEA UDA criminality.

Among the premises searched were the Cloughfern Arms and Eastway Social Club in Newtownabbey, and the Greenisland Working Men’s Social Club, which was Fisher’s local before his almost fatal heart attack.

The SEA UDA is understood to be planning on issuing a public statement rejecting criminality in a further effort to hoodwink the authorities into believing it wants to change.