Jamie Bryson: Loyalists should flood the legacy commission with demands for investigations into killings by the IRA, just as nationalists have done with regard to killings by the state and loyalists

This is exactly what nationalists and republicans have done. The inquest process, HET and civil proceedings in regards conflict related incidents have all suffered from an inherent imbalance. It has long been a complaint of unionism/loyalism that the IRA, at least those within the ‘mainstream’ – by which I mean supportive of the Sinn Fein strategy – have been largely granted a de-facto amnesty, and in regards the On The Run scheme and associated Royal Pardons, legally recognised immunity.

But now, with the legacy landscape shifted, nationalism and republicanism, via that communal political movement’s elected representatives and the loudest and most dominant lobby organisations in the field of nationalist/republican legacy activism, have firmly set their face against the ICRIR in any form.

It seems that absent an incredible volte-face, then broadly speaking nationalism and republicanism have excluded themselves from engagement in the new process which the UK government has made clear will continue to be the vehicle by which to deal with legacy.

That absolutist position provides unionist and loyalist victims with a unique strategic opportunity to fill the vacuum, and in doing so rebalance legacy by flooding the ICRIR with cases in relation to the IRA – only by flooding the commission will the number of cases begin to reflect accurately the responsibility for troubles death which 60% republicans.

I accept that loyalists are not only victims, they are actors, who can help with information recovery. However, any corporate loyalist engagement with the legacy structures in regards the ICRIR investigations into killings by the UVF, UDA or RHC – in my view – faces significant challenges owing to the fundamental incoherence in government policies.

The government wants paramilitary transition yet pursues a lopsided policy against loyalists. It also wants to have the ICRIR while granting nationalist the public inquiries they demand into some conflict incidents (focused exclusively on loyalist killings).

It is government’s ‘transition’ policy to explore via an interlocutor whether there is scope for a bespoke structured process for the transitioning of conflict-related proscribed organisations. It would be inconceivable that any structured transition process could in fact succeed without addressing the issue of legacy in a way which achieves buy-in from those transitioning. That buy-in would have to include an agreed process for how loyalist organisations corporately interact with the ICRIR structures.

The government policy which is most inconsistent with both the structure of the ICRIR and any envisaged transition process, is the ordering of public inquiries. The most prominent inquiry is into the killing of the republican Pat Finucane. This death has been investigated more than any other conflicted related incident. Meanwhile the Irish government has joined the nationalist push for an inquiry into the killing of Sean Brown.

Loyalists can see that the government often buckles to legacy demands from nationalist Ireland which dislodge the role of the ICRIR. I see little hope of a transition process if that continues.

Therefore, for both a potential structured transition process and the presently structured legacy architecture to work, there must be structural alignment between the two. It seems improbable that any loyalist group would engage in a structured transition process inclusive of dealing with legacy (in a corporate way or otherwise), if in parallel there will be public inquiries focused on loyalists, as demanded by republicans. If the ICRIR is the legacy structure, then it must be the legacy structure. There cannot be special carve outs for nationalist/republican ‘special cases’ (such as that of the republican Pat Finucane) to be dealt with by public inquiries, outside the legacy structure put in place by the IRCIR.

The government ought to consider the fundamental incoherence in their triangulation of policies (IRCIR legacy structure; exploring formal transition process; and public inquiries) and the very real risk this incoherent and disconnected approach will frustrate a successful outcome for any of the aforementioned policy areas.

But loyalism’s strategy can certainly be asymmetric. Whilst the special treatment of republican cases via public inquiries may torpedo corporate loyalist engagement with the ICRIR in regards incidents in which loyalists were responsible for killings, that does not preclude unionist and loyalist victims nevertheless flooding the system requiring investigations into IRA murders in order to achieve belated balance.

I want to emphasise that these are my views, and the loyalist organisations will in due course I am sure come to their own position.

Jamie Bryson,

Jamie Bryson is director of Unionist Voice Policy Studies