Speaker Edwin Poots says loyalist paramilitaries are ‘little more than old men’s clubs’
Groups such as the UDA and UVF “not what they used to be”.
Assembly speaker Edwin Poots has described loyalist paramilitary groups as “little more than old men’s clubs”.
The South Belfast MLA said proscribed groups such as the UDA and UVF were “not what they used to be”.
He was speaking in relation to recent racially motivated violence and disorder in his constituency, saying your home or business should not be attacked because of the colour of your skin or your religion.
Last week Mr Poots declined to condemn the most recent racist attack in his constituency when invited to by the Irish News.
Police said last Monday’s attack, the latest in series of incidents in South Belfast in which ethnic minorities or their businesses have been targeted, was racially-motivated. A motorcycle was burned and a property damaged on Frenchpark Street in the Village area.
In the aftermath of anti-immigration-related street disorder earlier this month, Assistant Chief Constable Melanie Jones said she was in “no doubt there is a paramilitary element” involved.
Mr Poots said he had spoken to the leaders of paramilitary groups to establish whether they had been involved in the recent violence.
“They were very clear right from the outset that this wasn’t to happen, and they were supporting it,” he told the BBC.
“And that goes back before that Saturday (August 3), and they were encouraging their own people not to attend, but individually people are doing that.”
He said a “number of these paramilitary organisations are little more than old men’s clubs – they are not what they used to be”.
Asked if he believed loyalist paramilitaries were involved, Mr Poots responded: “Certainly more significant, you know, organisations in South Belfast … are not active in that sense.
“But that’s not to say that because loyalist paramilitaries are so subdivided now, that there isn’t individuals from breakaways or factions that aren’t involved.”
The speaker said attacks on the homes of people from ethnic minorities were “counterproductive… and unrepresentative of unionism”.
“It doesn’t matter the colour your skin or the place that you worship, you shouldn’t have your home attacked for that, you shouldn’t have your business attacked for that,” he said.
by vague_intentionally_
17 comments
I don’t think I ever saw this posted (correct me if wrong) but I find this whole thing laughable when you have loyalist terrorists in massive numbers burning houses and businesses in racist attacks.
The whole ‘stakeholders’ thing as well with the dup. Does Poots not even have one of his offices rented out to them?
Edwin may have come up the lagan in a bubble but the rest of us didn’t.
Security services say they’re a set of active groups with 12500 members. Old men weren’t out rioting this summer. Loyalist terrorists were.
This is a man who believes the earth is 6000 yrs old and is also with his son under investigation for dodgy building applications – not really a man I would trust.
lol anyone that thinks the rioters were out there not because of paramilitaries is silly. Sure I can buy that MAYBE the city hall protest was actual protesters. But the violence In town was 100% encouraged by the paramilitaries.
I saw how it works during the riots on the sea border when I worked in one of those areas. They pick kids out who have lost parents or prospects in life, fill their head with shit blaming people to whom it is politically convenient for them to blame and then get them out on the streets. The ones they can’t radicalise they use drug debts over their heads to get them out, or they sort out fellas that have given them or their family trouble and use that as leverage. Maybe they work in a shop owned by someone that is part of the organisation and their job is under threat? That’s how it goes.
The sea border riots came about after a huge drug seizure, then right after they stop the paramilitaries receive 10 million pounds in community funding. If that doesn’t tell you they were behind it even without seeing the things I saw, I don’t know what does. Are we really supposed to believe it’s not them behind this as well when they have a track record of burning immigrants out of their communities? The amount of power these people hold is staggering, ever wonder why the Shankill Road only has one shop that really sells pizza?
Poots is disingenuous. He should know that loyalist paramilitaries are actually drug dealing gangs who control entire areas of our towns and cities and that young children are involved.
It’s amazing that a man who doesn’t understand this is the Speaker of the Assembly. But then there are a lot of other things he doesn’t understand either. Things like green algae, gas storage caverns etc.
Like Dads army but with the importing and selling lots of cocaine?
“Who do you think you are kidding ya big grifter
Get it up yer nose there son” 🎶
Aye Edwina whatever you say lad
recently read richard norton taylors book, the state of secrecy,
” ….m i five, military intelligence, and the ruc special branch recruited informers both catholic and loyalist, sometimes competing with each other. They turned a blind eye to murders, some of which were the result of british informers shopping other british informers. Such practices, the argument went, served to increase the credibility of informers and protect them from suspicion…
Patrick Walker, senior m i fve, told the ruc to put spying ahead of solving crimes. and detectives were ordered to never charge a suspected terrorist without first consulting the special branch, their intelligence-gathering unit which worked closely with m i $ . . .
That enabled anyone who was arrested to be recruited as an informer, rather than charged with a criminal offence. British agents known as “protected species” .
The ruc and m i * also covered up ‘shoot to kill’ attacks by sas as well as the police. In one notorious incident covered up by the ruc and mi 5ve in 1982, an unarmed 17 year old michael tighe, was shot and killed in a hayshed. They destroyed vital evidence, including an audio tape. ” ……..
Its a good book, didnt know bp, shell and rolls royce have close ties to the british intelligence services, reflected by the number of spymasters who join the companies boards as directors.
[Richard Norton-Taylor · Particularly Anodyne: One bomb in London (lrb.co.uk)](https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v43/n14/richard-norton-taylor/particularly-anodyne)
>The speaker said attacks on the homes of people from ethnic minorities were “counterproductive… and **unrepresentative of unionism”**.
Meanwhile Unionism has been burning out, violently evicting and committing mass murder against religious minorities for over 100 years.
*From the London Daily News, August 1920*
*”‘Practically the whole of this damage has been done to the property of Catholics all but a very few of the business premises of Belfast Catholics except those in the very heart of the city, or in the Catholic stronghold known as the Falls, have now been destroyed.”*
*-*
*”five weeks of ruthless persecution by boycott, fire, plunder and assault, culminating in a week’s wholesale violence, probably unmatched outside the area of Russian or Polish pogroms’13″*
The Daily Mail estimated that during the same month 400 Catholic families had been evicted or burned out and at least 20 Catholic civilians had been murdered by mobs.
Poops talks shit again, just another week in NI.
They way I see it todays loyalists are drug dealing gangs who’ve stollen thr UVF name etc, the real “troubles” loyalists are probably an old boys club
And yet he still wants their approval.
But but but, it’s the fuckin immnagints fault. Them and sinn fein/ira.
Apologist for sectarian drug gangs
Aye that’s right Edwin hi,
For _King, Kuntry and Ketamine_ 🇬🇧
Old men’s clubs that deal drugs and intimidate communities 🤔