William Crawley: When people talk about an off ramp and suggest that if these paramilitary groups do not take the off ramp, we should move to a full policing response… Within that claim, is it implied that we haven’t had a full policing response yet? We haven’t actually done that job?

Aaron Edwards: I think it is. I think there is a full blown sort of nuclear option here. It’s provided for in the Terrorism Act 2000 and it has led to successful prosecutions in GB. I’m thinking of Anjem Choudary who was the director of an Islamist organisation, prosecuted under the Directing of Terrorism legislation, Section 56. That could be applied, I suppose, but given the sort of semi-detached nature of legislation in Northern Ireland, that’s something that obviously legal experts would need to consult. But the thing is that there are levers that can be pulled, coercive levers. You talk about sticks, I mean, that’s one - another would be as Duncan [Morrow] has mapped out.

One of the sticking points here is gatekeepers. We could simply just, as a society, and the governments could just decide that they’re going to work around those gatekeepers, because a lot of money has been channelled into the coffers of these groups, some of these groups have been aligned or associated with paramilitary groups. There needs to be a kind of option there to penalise, you know, not just to monitor, not just to sit back, you know, and wait for this thing to happen organically.

I think that they’re definitely are levers of the state, or both states can pull. You know, that’s just an example of a couple of them. But I think that in the report, one thing that hasn’t been mentioned is the suggestion that perhaps, the so-called good paramilitaries, the “peace leaderships”, could inform on those criminal elements within their ranks. I mean, that’s a non-starter, surely, because in some of those organisations, you have people all the way up, from the top to the bottom, who are involved in criminality.

What are they going to do, inform on themselves? And so there is complicity there, and I think that that this has to really rotate around the idea of the organisations being hierarchies but also networks. And what I mean by that is - the UDA is a good example - there are some of those groups that are targeted by the Paramilitary Crime Task Force in North Antrim and Londonderry/Derry, for instance, they haven’t been given any funding, so, but they sit, or they nominally sit, on the LCC. So, really, I think there needs to be a coordinated response.

I do agree with the report authors that there has to be a more structured and coordinated response to this. And I think that that’s something that people would welcome. Not continual funding, not a continual talking shop, but action.

William Crawley: So, you take the money question either altogether, say, we’re up for engagement with a deadline, but this is it. This is the last round of that.

Aaron Edwards: Yeah, because they’re only there [because of the money]. I mean, I’ve talked to a lot of loyalists in the kind of middle management space as well, who, who say that, you know, within these groups - or associated with these groups - who say that they’re, that, you know, they’re not, they’re not, they would have done it by now.

William Crawley: How would that work, though? I mean, we’re taking the money out of it. We’re saying we’re up for engagement and then you say, our ambition is to make you go away. That’s our engagement and you don’t get a reward in terms of money for going away. Well, what’s the point? What’s the point of that from their point of view?

Aaron Edwards: Well, as Chris Hudson has said, they’re about papering rooms with these declarations of intent. Actually show them and work through them, you know, line by line. This is what you said in 2015. This is what you said in 2018. This is what you said last week.

William Crawley: I doubt they’re worried about logical inconsistency, these guys.

Aaron Edwards: Well, I mean, if you’re going to use, as the report authors suggest, the Declaration of Transformation from 2018 as a roadmap. Clearly, you need to do a kind of a bit of an exercise in taking stock of where things have been in the past, almost a decade. So they’re going to be held the account. They going to have to be held in account and they’re going to have to put themselves forward, even to their own membership. I’m not talking to the wider public because a lot of this is happening behind closed doors or… behind masks. So, clearly, you know, if they’re serious, I think they need to drive it through themselves as, as hierarchies, these [paramilitary] organisations.

My new book, Enemies Within: The Explosive True Story of Johnny ‘Mad Dog’ Adair, Northern Ireland’s Most Infamous Paramilitary, will be published on 10 September by Merrion Press. Click here for more details.

The report, Completing Loyalist Paramilitary Transformation, is to be welcomed.

Anything that raises the level of debate in the search for practical ways to bring about the total disbandment of loyalist paramilitary groups is a worthy endeavour and should be applauded.

However, there are several questions raised by the report, which are not sufficiently answered. I will try to deal with each of them in this short article.

First, the NIDG outline a considered case for greater cooperation between political unionism, the British government and loyalist groups in the dismantling of paramilitary structures. They recommend this ‘concentrated process of engagement’ begin in 2028 to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement.

Most people reading this might be asking themselves the same question: Surely loyalist paramilitaries have had enough time to transform? And besides, isn’t this idea of collaboration something they’ve been doing for years, even if it is largely on the basis of direct and indirect funding of community groups associated with paramilitaries?

Helpfully, the NIDG seem to anticipate this kind of response and make the case that whatever passed for collaboration in the past was all rather ad hoc and uncoordinated. They suggest we need more of a ‘structured and concentrated approach’ that draws on the so-called Declaration of Transformation (DoT) announced by the main loyalist paramilitary groupings in 2018.

As I see it, the difficulty here is that all three prospective partners see the problems differently, and, significantly, have different ideas when it comes to offering solutions.

Perhaps more importantly the British Government holds firm to a policy assumption that paramilitary groups ought to transition entirely of their own volition.

And political unionism has thus far not really engaged as a corporate entity with the issue, even if individual members of the two main unionist parties have done so. They don’t see it as their problem.

The second issue is with ongoing paramilitary-related crime. It is widely believed that paramilitary leaders are complicit with a range of illegal activities and, therefore, deeply wedded to criminality. However, the NIDG do attempt to further delineate between ‘good paramilitaries’ and ‘bad paramilitaries’. The problem here is, as I have often suggested, what if the good and the bad - and the ugly for that matter - are one and the same? It is simply not good enough that paramilitaries dismiss this issue out of hand by crowing about “intelligence is not evidence” and this is “a job for the police”, while rhetorically asking the rest of us to believe them when they say “loyalists cannot be criminals” when there is ample evidence placed before the courts to the contrary.

During the Troubles it was easy to spot those motivated by profiteering over loyalist ideology. Jimmy Craig was the best known example but there were many more. Conversely, it was possible to identify those who were ideologically motivated and who seemed committed to military activity only in lieu of political solutions, with John McMichael being the best known. Indeed, even Andy Tyrie presented himself as a vigilante leader who believed in loyalist politics and was prepared to direct violence when he thought it advanced the UDA as a corporate body. I accept that there was certainly cross-over between the these three types of loyalist paramilitaries.

That being said, the argument I make in my forthcoming book on the UDA, Enemies Within, is that a new kind of loyalist paramilitary has emerged since the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement, one who has DNA common to all these types of loyalist paramilitary. Therefore, it is much more difficult to disentangle how they have become involved in paramilitary activity, and, crucially, why they’ve remained in these organisational structures.

You cannot easily send this post-Agreement loyalist paramilitary to political education or ‘civics’ classes hoping that is enough to ‘end the harm’ they are causing to their communities.

Finally, there is what I call the ‘Sunk Cost Fallacy’, by which I mean the British Government has shown itself reluctant to deal with loyalist paramilitaries in any other way than what it has been doing for over over two decades now.

Summed up succinctly, it is as follows: Loyalist paramilitary leaderships, in whole or part, are committed to transforming their organisations but they do also have members who are heavily involved in criminal activity.

It is widely understood that the Paramilitary Crime Taskforce, which concentrates on several groups across six areas, is an essential state-based law enforcement tool for applying coercive pressure on the criminal element.

What we rarely hear talked about is how the state ‘engages’ with representatives of paramilitary groups in a bid to keep the ‘politicos’ onboard. With the benefit of hindsight we know this has been ongoing both covertly and overtly for over two generations. Indeed, successive IRC reports indicate significant funding has been directed towards the latter objective in a two track ‘carrot and stick’ approach.

The major issue with this fallacy is, as I have already noted in my second point, it is based on a false dichotomy. There may well be ‘good’ paramilitaries but, in several cases, they are one and the same as the ‘bad’ and plain old ‘ugly’ paramilitaries.

Notwithstanding these issues, the NIDG do raise good questions like:

1. What would the metrics for ‘total transformation’ look like?

2. ⁠In advocating for de-proscription, how does this sit alongside Legacy legislation concerning terrorist acts committed by paramilitaries in the past?

3. ⁠How can loyalists be expected to move towards what they call a progressive future / common good when the middle management and foot soldiers of paramilitary groups have become deeply implicated in criminality and in (non progressive) racial violence directed towards migrant communities?

To return to the NIDG recommendation of closer collaboration, there is an urgent need for all potential partners to rethink their understanding of the problems ensuring the persistence of loyalist paramilitary activity.

I look forward to the NIDG explaining how the British Government (or the British and Irish Governments jointly) are going to deliver what they want in the context of being unable to shift from a security to a development mindset.

This is particularly urgent in the afterglow of serious race-based disorder which has all the signs of being a perennial security and developmental challenge.

In this at least Northern Ireland is no longer a ‘place apart’.

All modern European states are reeling from the shocks of complex challenges such as unrelenting illegal immigration, a continuing nose dive in the standard of living and massive geopolitical shifts beyond the borders of the EU.

I commend the authors of the report. It is clear that we need to urgently move towards taking practical steps to grasp the nettle of paramilitary transformation once and for all.

The Irish News initially reported on Wednesday 10th June that loyalists were involved in the trouble.

A day later the Belfast Telegraph carried a front page headline indicating loyalist paramilitaries denied orchestrating riots but would not help stop the violence.

On 12th June The Guardian suggested loyalists were likely sitting on the fence about the unfolding mayhem and had ostensibly adopted a ‘neutral’ stance.

By the end of the week, on 14th June, the Belfast Telegraph’s Northern Ireland Editor Sam McBride was writing about his first-hand encounter with loyalist paramilitaries while covering the riots.

A few days later on 18th June the Irish News featured an interview with the Commissioner for Children and Young people, Chris Quinn, who said he was aware of young people being bussed in to trouble spots to clear drug debts.

The next day the Irish News editorial went a step further and laid the blame for the riots squarely at the door of loyalists, stating ‘no serious observer could ever in doubt that the recent racist rioting was organised by loyalist paramilitary figures’.

The Writing is on the Wall

With conflicting reports on the involvement of paramilitary groups, where does the truth actually lie?

It is important to be honest at the outset: Loyalist paramilitaries have been deeply involved in rioting and race hate incidents in the past. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume, as the old saying goes, there really is “no smoke without fire”.

In fact as recently as the week before this gruesome knife attack, the Sunday World newspaper carried my comments on racist graffiti that had appeared in and around the Rathcoole estate. It had been reported that local paramilitaries had forced children to spray the writing on the walls.

The graffiti did not appear out of nowhere.

It followed off the back of non-violent protests staged by concerned local residents regarding an incident involving a group of Yemeni migrants dancing on ceremonial daggers in Hazelbank Park, a short distance from the estate.

Hazelbank has become something of a flashpoint in recent years, particularly as new immigrant communities take advantage of the outdoor amenities.

Inevitably these protests have drawn the attention of some paramilitaries, with one tabloid newspaper suggesting the South East Antrim UDA had been involved in an arson attack on a vehicle belonging to a Nigerian man in Rathcoole.

I have since learned that a local UVF figure is suspected of being behind the spray can graffiti and, potentially, in actively sending young people onto the streets.

Most readers would probably ask at this point - why does it matter which organisation is involved? Surely the key point is they are involved.

My answer would be that it matters because knowing what kind of malign influence animates such acts, even at a localised level, can aid in preventing or pre-empting them in future.

Influence vs Involvement

How then can we understand the role of paramilitaries in race hate incidents?

I think the first point to make is that we can assume some degree of loyalist paramilitary influence, if not involvement, in the recent riots.

This may seem to fly in the face of the PSNI’s briefing on 11th June that there was ‘no evidence’ of ‘paramilitary coordination’ in the violence.

Whether individual paramilitaries were physically present on the ground directing trouble or simply ‘monitoring’ the situation from a step removed is a moot point, for they are part of the fabric of marginalised and deprived communities.

They know everything that goes on and they have real influence in deciding the direction of travel when feet are on the street in large numbers.

At this point it is important to step back for a moment and look at the wider dynamic at play within paramilitary groups.

Both the UVF and UDA leadership structures have become ossified in recent years as they have made moves to leave the stage.

In practice, what that means in places like Rathcoole is that mid-level ‘commanders’ have much more autonomy to respond to issues like racial tensions. It also means if an intolerant figure is in charge of the UVF locally - and there have been many shifts in leadership over the past few years - then they may well be complicit. And the Shankill-based Brigade Staff would be none the wiser.

However, that is not the same as saying there is a single mastermind sitting behind the scenes pulling the strings of those predominantly younger people engaged in the trouble.

As tempting though it may be to assert that paramilitary involvement explains the causes of the violence, it is important to place these riots in a wider perspective. One in which direct involvement is distinguished from active influence and/or passive influence in a broader strategic context.

Let me explain what I mean in a little more detail.

When asked for comment by the Irish News on 10th June, I mapped out a number of theories regarding paramilitary involvement and/or influence in this fast developing situation:

“One theory is that, given several loyalist paramilitary leaderships have been in negotiations regarding paramilitary disbandment, it’s unlikely loyalist groups sanctioned the horrific scenes we witnessed on the streets last night.

It might be argued the tight leash governments and international donors have exerted on paramilitary groups makes it unlikely their membership were directed to become involved.

Another theory - a rather cynical one - is that paramilitary structures have not gone away because they have no intent to do so. By stepping back some of these groups are essentially saying to the authorities: “we can be useful” in managing racial conflict.” By doing nothing they are trying to make themselves relevant. And that’s morally repugnant and dangerous.

It means, as the past two years of race based rioting has proven, some people in positions of authority actually buy into this vision of what some experts like Dr Sean Brennan have called ‘paramilitary peacekeeping’.’”

There was, of course, a third theory (mentioned above), in terms of the internal dynamics between central command structures and local leadership.

Nevertheless, you will hopefully see the point I am trying to make.

In all three scenarios, paramilitaries - and how the state, society and people all interact with them - can switch between passive influence, active influence and direct involvement, particularly when it comes to violence.

Curiously, as the trouble spread, there were even calls for paramilitaries to shift into direct involvement mode to ‘put the genie’ of race-based violence back in its bottle.

This is a tempting lever to reach for, as I have argued on many occasions before. There is even evidence to suggest it was used effectively when loyalist youths clashed with the PSNI in 2021.

In the context of the recent riots, I argued it might well stop one form of (race-based) violence but we risk embedding these groups further into a well-trodden pattern of (sectarian) violence.

What I should add is this approach continues to be favoured within policy and statutory communities.

Shifting Ground

Whether loyalist paramilitaries played a coordinated role or not, the ground beneath them is shifting.

More and more young people have proven themselves determined and coordinated when it comes to putting feet on the street, with or without paramilitary influence or direct involvement.

For close analysts of the security situation, these changes are not unexpected.

Indeed, it could be argued the past three summers of racially motivated rioting, signals two possible futures.

On the one hand, paramilitary groups will act to capitalise on the disaffection and go on a recruitment drive, particularly amongst those young people impacted by the criminal justice system.

On the other hand, new (malign) social movements may well emerge from the violence we witnessed earlier this month.

While some see paramilitaries as benevolent arbiters of social good - in old fashioned terms as ‘defenders’, others will see them as malevolent forces injurious to the greater good.

No matter what way you characterise them, they show no signs of going away anytime soon.

Rioting, whatever its cause, only makes them more relevant and places an onus on those charged with eradicating them from our midst to understand the changing character of the risks they pose to community safety.

A leading Democratic Party politician, Senator Mitchell chaired the multi-party talks that led to the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement on 10 April 1998.

He quickly won the respect of the political parties.

In April 2023 the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Sir Ian Greer, acknowledged his role:

“Queen’s is privileged to have a longstanding and deeply valued relationship with Senator Mitchell, a statesman who has left an indelible mark on this region.”

Significantly, Mitchell was applauded for laying down the guardrails for negotiations, “The Mitchell Principles”, which meant all parties had to adhere to exclusively peaceful and democratic means.

For many people, Mitchell was seen - and continues to be seen - as a totemic figure of the Northern Ireland peace process.

He was the man who persuaded those involved in negotiations to do what was right for all the people of this divided place.

Some might go as far as to say there would be no peace process without his input.

It was certainly something I acknowledged as a young student.

I first attended university in the immediate aftermath of the Omagh bomb, a terrorist atrocity committed by dissident republicans who slaughtered 29 men, women and children and injured hundreds more.

Two of those injured that day lived in my halls of residence. One of them had been blown through a plate glass window, leaving him with horrendous injuries.

As 18-year-olds none of us had to be reminded of the price to be paid for deadly armed conflict.

Senator Mitchell captured our thoughts and feelings well on a visit to Omagh in September 1995, describing it as a “emotional and spiritual turning point” in the peace process.

Senator Mitchell was frequently in the media offering inspirational words of encouragement. In an article published in 1999 he wrote:

“I believe there is no such thing as a conflict that cannot be ended. They are created and sustained by human beings. They can be ended by human beings. No matter how ancient the conflict, no matter how hateful, no matter how hurtful, peace can prevail.”

Senator Mitchell seemed to have come to represent a sort of paragon of virtue as we sought to realise his vision for a more optimistic future.

For almost 30 years Mitchell has been one of the ‘sacred cows’ of the peace process.

The Vanishing Commissar

When Senator Mitchell returned to Queen’s to officially open Agreement 25 conference in April 2023, his keynote speech was tempered with the same optimism he held in the 1990s.

To mark Senator Mitchell’s input into the long search for peace, Queen’s erected a bust of him outside its famous old building.

It was unveiled by Senator Mitchell and the then Chancellor, Hillary Clinton, along with other ‘architects’ of the peace process.

Mitchell’s participation was represented by the university as a monumental occasion as they pulled out all the brakes in their eulogies of him.

Subliminally, the occasion was even used as an opportunity by Rishi Sunak’s government as a means of persuading local politicians to return to Stormont after yet another suspension of the Assembly and Executive.

It seemed to do the trick as the parties returned to the power-sharing institutions in early 2024.

And Senator Mitchell was back in Queen’s again a few months later to give a keynote speech at their high-profile “passing the torch” event.

His speech helped underscore the importance of maintaining the path to peace. It is worth quoting at length:

“The future is not about losing. It is about gaining. And it is therefore - once again - about sharing. Sharing ideas. Sharing plans. Sharing successes. And, yes, if they occur, sharing losses.

Going forward, we need to be prepared for any mistakes we might make. We must be agile enough to recorrect where necessary. We need to listen across the divides. We need to be fully informed. We need to tune out the disinformation. We need to shoulder the burdens together.

We must not get distracted by the buzzing bees of those small-minded people who want to narrow the laneways of our thought. We must build consensus. We need to embrace difficulty and not allow any natural human differences - geographical, religious, even aspirational - to cleave us open.

It is often said that every conflict is a battle of the story that we tell. That is true. But it is also true that every resolution comes in the manner that we listen.

In short, we need to listen to one another. And listen well.”

A senior Irish government minister was on hand to praise Senator Mitchell for his tireless advocacy on behalf of the peace process.

The event was a huge success, especially for the young people in attendance from across the island.

Within a few months, however, it would all be overtaken by revelations in the US.

The release of another tranche of over 3.5 million documents by the US Department of Justice under the Epstein Files Transparency Act on 30 January 2026 threw Senator Mitchell’s relationship with notorious pedophile and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein under a renewed spotlight.

Queen’s acted quickly.

In a statement issued to the BBC on 2 February 2026, the university said:

“While no findings of wrongdoing by Senator Mitchell have been made, the university has concluded that, in light of this material, and mindful of the experiences of victims and survivors, it is no longer appropriate for its institutional spaces and entities to continue to bear his name.

As a civic institution with a global reputation for leadership in peace, reconciliation, and justice, Queen’s University Belfast must ensure that its honours and symbols reflect the highest standards consistent with its values and responsibilities.”

I was invited onto BBC Radio Ulster’s Talkback programme to give my views on the statement, presumably because I am an alumnus of the university who has written extensively about the peace process.

My personal instinct was to welcome the decision. In keeping with the position of my trade union comrades in the local branch of the University College Union, which represents staff at Queen’s, had been calling for the university take such action since a partial release of the Epstein Files in September last year. Then Mitchell was mentioned in the documents and forced to issue a statement in response, more of which later.

The UCU then released a statement on 2 February supporting the decision by Queen’s and reinforcing its original position:

“The values of our trade union movement are justice, equality, and fairness, which we expect to be upheld by our university and those who publicly represent it. It is evident that Senator George J. Mitchell fails to meet these standards, and so all links must be removed.”

What I remain less comfortable about, however, is the rather blunt attempt to erase all mention of Senator Mitchell across the university, without any attempt at public transparency and accountability.

We have become accustomed to the idea of erasing high-profile figures who have been accused of personal transgressions. The #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatters social media led movements were important watershed moments that led to greater public scrutiny of powerful and influential people and institutions.

We could debate whether this actually led to broader structural changes.

Nevertheless, if we follow the logic of this new form of “cancel culture,” we are being asked to pretend as if Senator Mitchell had not spent the past 27 years of his professional life presiding over countless graduations, conferences and high-profile events.

Whether intentionally or not, the university appears to have become an instigator of a broader process of collective amnesia.

In many ways it is akin to the manipulation of the historical record by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in the 1930s.

One of the best documented attempts to write Stalin’s enemies out of the record was Leon Trotsky, the one-time Commissar in charge of the Red Army. He was simply erased from all photographs and records.

It was not a credible method of managing people out of existence then.

Nor is it now.

The university has left questions unanswered.

In relation to Senator Mitchell it seems to me these are:

• What does Queen’s University hope to achieve by erasing one of its most prominent global leaders?

• Will Senator Mitchell be given the right of reply?

• More broadly, are we now being asked to revise our collective memory in relation to Senator Mitchell’s role in the peace process?

I suppose we will have to wait on further developments so as to get the answers to these questions.

Many More Years of Your Friendship

In the meantime, social media platforms are replete with claims and counter-claims about Senator Mitchell.

It is worth looking at some of these, particularly the small matter of Senator Mitchell’s friendship with Jeffrey Epstein.

Their friendship began in the early 1990s after a chance encounter at an airport in Washington.

Mitchell revealed as much in a gushing letter to Epstein that was placed in Epstein’s 50th Birthday Book:

Epstein too regarded Mitchell as “my very close friend”, as the latest DoJ tranche of documents indicate:

As his “very close friend,” Epstein would sometimes fly Mitchell around in his private jet.

Logs released by the DoJ in early 2025 confirm Mitchell travelled on Epstein’s plane in 1994 and 1995:

So far, that is as much as we know.

Mitchell and Epstein were “good friends.”

In September 2025 Senator Mitchell released a statement to the BBC, regarding the birthday book letter.

He maintained their friendship ended in 2008 after he “first learned of those actions through published reports of Epstein’s prosecution in Florida. He never had any contact with Mr. Epstein again.”

However, the release of a new tranche of Epstein Files by the DoJ seems to contradict this statement, with some documents suggesting tentative arrangements for meetings at various times between 2011 and 2015.

It is important to add that Mr Mitchell’s spokesperson reiterated his position that these “few invitations” were “declined or deflected.”

Nonetheless, the new documents would appear to have been the tipping point in the decision by Queen’s University to terminate their relationship with Senator Mitchell.

No Man is an Island, Entire of Itself

I suspect more information will come to light about the nature of the relationships Epstein had with and many of those who feature prominently in the news headlines.

That may well include George Mitchell.

In the meantime, it is probably appropriate to remain cautious, as the Belfast Newsletter reminded us today,

“There might be a time when these institutions should cut their links with Senator Mitchell but until any such time his record here deserves gratitude and respect.”

Many people may well opt to follow this logic.

It rests on the long-held belief that those accused of something are innocent until proven guilty.

When we look at other architects of the peace process, we can understand why people may have to engage in trade offs.

For instance, there are many people who were grateful to Tony Blair for his role in bringing about the Agreement but who would later part company with him over his decision to take the UK to war in Iraq.

It is, therefore, entirely possible to disaggregate individuals from the broader political projects they were involved in.

The peace process came about for a range of reasons over a long period of time.

It stuck because of the hard work of a lot of people on the ground practising restraint, as well as a few deals done around well-polished conference tables.

Those who bore the brunt of Troubles-related violence may be grateful for the opportunity afforded by the “great and the good” who orientated them towards the prize of peace.

What the people themselves achieved after these politicians departed the scene does not have to stand or fall on the basis of subsequent allegations or revelations about these individuals, no matter how integral they were seen to the process.

Disclaimer

Senator George J. Mitchell has consistently denied any wrong-doing. A spokesman for Mr Mitchell has reiterated his earlier statement that he “profoundly regrets ever having known Jeffrey Epstein and condemns, without reservation, the horrific harm Epstein inflicted on so many women” and that Senator Mitchell “did not at any time observe, suspect or have any knowledge of Epstein engaging in illegal or inappropriate conduct with underage women.”

It was the summer of 2015 and I was in the town to interview people who were close to the former mid-Ulster UVF commander, Billy Wright.

These interviews would form a key component of my book, UVF: Behind the Mask.

It was an eventful trip.

I met one person who had been part of Wright’s ‘team’.

I also met a former loyalist prisoner who had been friends with Wright. He made a quip about hardline loyalists “always meeting the same fate.”

He then told me the story of the prominent Belfast UVF commander, John Dowey Bingham.

Bingham had been assassinated by a Provisional IRA death squad on 14 September 1986 at his home in Ballysillan, north Belfast.

The former prisoner said he believed Bingham would have survived the attack if he had received the medical attention he required after he was shot.

He further alleged how the police, who promptly arrived on the scene minutes after the shooting, “let John bleed out.”

Apparently local people believed the IRA hit team had been permitted to enter the area “under the watchful eye of the RUC.”

I said I’d look into the case, if only to satisfy my own curiosity.

I assumed such claims were more likely to be fiction, rather than fact.

When I got back to Belfast I asked a contact if he knew anyone in John Bingham’s family who would speak to me about his murder.

My contact made arrangements for us to meet a relative of Bingham’s: John’s daughter, Elizabeth Bingham.

We met in mid-November 2016 and talked at length about her father’s murder.

I shared with her the allegations I’d heard in Portadown.

She asked me if I could help her find out more about what really happened.

I agreed.

And thus began one of the most detailed open-source investigations I’ve ever been involved in.

I didn’t know it at the time but it would take us into the heart of allegations of collusion between the British state, the Provisional IRA and, perhaps most damningly of all, the complicity of so-called loyalists in the deaths of their own comrades.

The Life and Death of John Bingham

John Dowey Bingham was a life-long loyalist and a senior UVF commander from Ballysillan.

It has been widely reported that Bingham was responsible for directing terrorist activities in the 1970s and 1980s.

In an interview with one of Bingham’s associates in Belfast for Behind the Mask, he told me, “John was the quintessential terrorist but I would have followed him to the gates of hell.”

Bingham was arrested and charged on the evidence of UVF supergrass Joe Bennett.

The supergrass trials subsequently collapsed and those detained were released.

Bingham promptly returned to UVF activities.

In the words of his close friend George Seawright, he would become a “legend in his own lifetime.”

Emily O’Reilly of the Sunday Tribune met Bingham in the summer of 1986 and described in detail what led Seawright to make this claim. Her dispatch makes for fascinating, albeit grim, reading.

After Bingham’s death he became the subject of wild allegations, particularly from the veteran Guardian journalist Nicholas Davies, some of which now seem preposterous.

In death Bingham’s reputation grew in the telling, with Davies and others accusing him of collusion with the British state.

Little did anyone know how the collusion they alleged did actually exist but not in the way they alleged. Rather, it existed between the British agents inside the Provisional IRA and their handlers.

In fact, it would later transpire how it was the main reason for John Bingham’s murder.

Reopening a Cold Case

For decades the public knew very little of the facts relating to John Bingham’s violent death.

They knew Bingham had UVF connections.

They knew he had been implicated in the supergrass trials.

They also knew he had been assassinated by the IRA in 1986.

And that was it.

All the rest was speculation.

My first task was to establish the basic facts of his murder.

I knew the best way to do this was to request the release of the inquest file on John Bingham.

This had been under lock and key since the Coroner’s Court returned an open verdict in the late 1980s.

Under the Freedom of Information Act, I managed to force the release of the file in 2016. I received a copy in the post.

Oddly, perhaps even intentionally, the file was never listed as open on the PRONI catalogue.

In order to share it with Liz, I enlisted the help of seasoned researcher and campaigner Clifford Peeples to help walk her through the process of obtaining a copy of the file.

After he consulted on the Bingham file with Liz, Clifford found serious discrepancies in the legal documentation.

Very simply this took two forms.

First, there was evidence of the getaway vehicle used by the IRA having been tampered with.

The white Renault used in the murder had been found a short time later in Jamaica Court in Ardoyne.

Back then it was standard protocol for the RUC to call in the local Army Ammunition Technical Officer (ATO) to clear suspect vehicles of any potential dangers such as booby trap devices.

Crucially, the ATO from nearby Girdwood Barracks reported in his deposition how the car keys were still in the ignition.

However, after a stint in the RUC impound the ignition of the car was tampered to make it look like it had been “hot wired”.

The second discrepancy was potentially the most serious.

It involved the murder weapons.

In the The Bingham Report, Peeples linked the weapons used to other killings carried out by the Provost.

In a rudimentary link analysis of the firearms and ballistics, he was able to conclude the high possibility these weapons were part of the same dump used by the IRA in killing their own people.

These revelations were explosive.

Under normal circumstances though they might have been ignored.

Clifford’s report formally made the claim of collusion between the British state and its agents.

Fortunately, there was now a mechanism available for Liz and her family to have these assertions tested.

In 2016 the PSNI launched Operation Kenova to investigate the involvement of a British agent inside the IRA, codenamed “Stakeknife”, in the murder of up to 40 people.

Most of these killings related to the IRA’s Internal Security Unit known as the “Nutting Squad,” of which Stakeknife had risen to become second-in-command.

It was enough circumstantial evidence to persuade the newly appointed investigation lead, John Boutcher, to ask for the Bingham case be taken on by Op Kenova. This was formally agreed with the PSNI Chief Constable.

In assisting Liz with her search for justice, we helped her compile evidence, which she then presented to the Kenova team.

Liz was also ably assisted by her solicitor, John Greer, of Reavey and Company on the Shankill Road.

Yet, the path engaging with Kenova was fraught with difficulties.

Liz faced serious obstacles in her search for justice.

The time taken by Kenova to complete their work was one such obstacle. The passage of time, as we all know, made securing evidence and testimony more challenging.

Another obstacle was resources. On this point the dedicated family liaison process put in place by the Kenova really paid off. It gave Liz a point of contact to assist her through the criminal investigation process.

Ironically, these constraints paled into insignificance when it became clear the main obstacle was from the opposition of certain members of Liz’s own community to her search for justice.

“Stay away from those people”

One of those people who sought to deter us from investigating John Bingham’s murder was the late PUP spokesman Ken Wilkinson.

Ken was one of those curious individuals who joined the UVF later in life after a short stint in the part-time C Company of 1/9 UDR in Antrim.

Ken was renowned for having been involved in an incident in the mid-1990s in which an off-duty RUC officer was assaulted.

He was subsequently handed a two-year suspended sentence for doling out a nasty beating to the officer at Antrim’s British Legion Club in November 1995. After kicking and head-butting the policeman, Wilkinson told him, “You fucking speak or mention this to anyone and I’ll have you shot!”

Judge James Brady recommended Wilkinson “stop getting drunk and stop assaulting people.”

Coincidentally, another loyalist, Billy Wright, was jailed around the same time for 8 years for similar threats to kill.

Ken had a reputation for throwing his weight around.

He was known for acting as an unofficial envoy for the UVF Brigade Staff, a role which frequently brought him into conflict with others.

He could be blunt, abrasive and, at times, overly aggressive.

I was reminded of it first-hand when I took a phonecall from him in late June 2017.

After giving me a dressing down - I assumed for something he had heard and not read in my latest book, UVF: Behind the Mask - Ken became increasingly agitated.

He ranted about “some of those people” who I was “associating with” who, he said, I needed to know weren’t to be trusted.”

“Stay away from those people,” he repeated. “Billy Mitchell would be turning in his grave if he knew who you were hanging around with now,” he said, losing his cool as he raised his voice at me down the phone.

I must confess, I wasn’t sure what Ken was getting at.

Then it clicked.

Liz had published her report into the murder of her father a few weeks earlier. Around the same time I launched my book on the UVF.

Still, I found it odd that a member of the PUP - who I’d known for years - would ring me out of the blue to give me “some friendly advice” regarding “this business about John Bingham. I’m handling it, right,” he said pointedly and hung up.

I’m still puzzled as to why loyalists would want to discourage other loyalists from investigating the death of a loyalist. I’ll return to this point in a later post.

The key point in all of this is what really mattered for Liz was finding out the truth.

And Kenova assured her they’d get to the bottom of her father’s murder, one way or another.

Where is the Justice for Loyalist Victims?

John Bingham’s death proves that a paradox exists in Northern Ireland.

That someone widely reported as having been a “perpetrator” can also be regarded as a “victim.”

This is, of course, a highly controversial statement, as the current Justice Minister Naomi Long has recently discovered.

But it is a point of view shared by the family members of IRA and INLA members killed during the Troubles.

These families have continued to lobby the British state for the truth about the unsolved murders of their loved ones.

Victims families are a powerful lobby group.

That much is certain.

What is also certain is they are divided.

Deeply divided.

Just like Northern Irish society, politics and culture more broadly.

Speak to loyalists who have been involved in supporting campaigns for truth around the murders of loyalists and they will tell you of a “two-tiered justice system” in play.

They point to the absence of legacy investigations into perennial atrocities like the Shankill bomb of October 1993 and a range of other cases. They also point to the way the PSNI and courts treat loyalists who find themselves caught up in the criminal justice system.

Their belief is they have no automatic right to expect justice.

Liz Bingham was one of those sceptics who believed the law, as my late grandfather, a lifelong loyalist himself, used to say was “crooked.”

But she never gave up on demanding justice for herself, her family or her community.

She worked constructively with the Kenova team.

Finally, it seemed to pay off.

On 27 August 2019, Liz sent me a WhatsApp message. She was quietly confident her father’s case was being expedited and moved to prosecution stage:

“I’m waiting on the PPS making a decision. Boutcher seems to think it will be soon. He says if they don’t publish he will release a document to me and into the public detailing the whole truth about my dad’s murder so either way I will get the truth and so will the world. He says he knows from start to end every detail and who did what when, he says there is no unanswered question as he has it all. Just sitting waiting on the call. Patience isn’t my thing but I think I’m handling it well as can be expected.”

Subsequently Liz received the following WhatsApp message via one of the family liaison officers a few months later:

Today 2/10/19 I delivered a series of case files to the Director of Public Prosecutions (NI) seeking charging decisions in relation to a number of Operation Kenova murder investigations and other related serious crimes.

Prior to this becoming a matter of public record I wanted to inform you personally Elizabeth that the case of John Bingham features as one of the files that has formed part of this submission. I recognise that as a result of this significant update you and your family may have a number of questions of me.

In the first instance your dedicated Family Liaison Officer XXX will endeavour to answer your questions. 

Please be aware however, that due to the legal sub-judice he may not be able to answer specific questions relating to your loved one’s investigation.

In the coming weeks myself and Keith Surtees will be arranging appointments to meet with you personally where I hope we will be able to answer any remaining questions you may have.

And after that the lines of communication seemed to run cold.

We now know why.

In the publication of the final Kenova report the following lines of inquiry were investigated by the team with respect to the Bingham case:

• FRU handlers were aware of the identities of those involved in the murder shortly after it was carried out.

• FRU handlers failed to pass the relevant intelligence to the RUC SB.

• An intelligence report containing the names of the suspects was removed from the relevant Army file.

• One of the suspects involved in the murder was a FRU agent.

• One of the suspects involved had been observed on a number of occasions in the area near to the scene in the days leading up to the attack.

Despite these very serious allegations, the PPS decided no-one was to be held accountable for John Bingham’s murder.

No one.

Let that sink in.

After an exhausted investigation by Liz Bingham and the compilation of evidence of criminal culpability by the Kenova team, the state decided not to seek prosecutions of those individuals who may be responsible.

Liz Bingham died in May 2023 and did not live to see the outcome of the Kenova investigation with respect to her father.

John Bingham’s surviving family had duly notified on 1st April 2024 of the:

‘no prosecution’ decision taken on the additional John Bingham murder file ‘which named three civilian suspects who were all alleged to have been members of PIRA, but which did not involve any alleged connections to the agent Stakeknife and was therefore dealt with separately by PPSNI. No public statement was made in respect of this decision, but the family of the victim were informed of the reasons for it by letter.

A Legacy of Spies

Today there are many families reeling at the news of how, after £47.5 million being spent on Op Kenova, nobody has been charged.

Well, to be exact, only Freddie Scappaticci, the second-in-command of the IRA’s infamous “Nutting Squad” had been charged. Ironically, his crime was not in relation to the murderous activities he was involved in but in relation to extreme animal pornography.

Incidentally, this is the kind of deviant activity enterprising spooks the world over utilise as leverage in their pitch to recruit agents.

As far as the Kenova report goes, we are led to believe Stakeknife became an agent because of the promise of money, his hatred for the IRA leadership and security for his family.

The former Military Intelligence Officer Ian Hurst and journalist Greg Harkin, who originally brought the Stakeknife case to public attention, have questioned the professional competence of the Kenova team.

Writing in the Irish News on the morning of the report’s release, they alleged it amounted to little more than “fairy tales.”

In fact, having written a book on intelligence matters involving the running of Agents of Influence inside the IRA, I would say the victim’s families likely have more questions today than when this major investigation started a decade ago.

One thing is certain though.

Whatever we now know about the British state’s complicity in the IRA’s killing of suspected informers, we still know a lot less about their killing of loyalists.

Crucially, we know next to nothing about the involvement of agents and informers inside loyalist paramilitary groups who acted with the same impunity as Stakeknife.

Will there be an ‘Op Kenova’ style investigation into these serious allegations?

I won’t hold my breath.

Aaron Edwards is the author of critically acclaimed books, UVF: Behind the Mask and Agents of Influence: Britain’s Secret Intelligence War Against the IRA. His next book, Enemies Within, on the use of secret agents inside the UDA/UFF, will be published by Merrion Press in 2026.

Most of the time these requests are knocked back.

I thought I’d explain to you, dear reader, a little more about the process so as to demystify one of the core activities at the heart of my research and writing.

Let’s dive right in.

The most recent rebuttal from the National Archives was in relation to a document I wanted to access entitled: “The Stevens Inquiry (collusion between security forces and loyalist paramilitaries).”

Some brief context: Lord Stevens, then deputy Chief Constable of Cambridgeshire Constabulary and subsequently Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service, was dispatched to Northern Ireland following the leakage of British intelligence documents into the hands of loyalist paramilitaries in 1989.

The intelligence documents were mostly low-level with composite information gleaned from what were known as “P Files”, short information cards giving the names, addresses and other basic information about suspected “players” in the various terrorist organisations. Copies of these “P Files” found their way into the hands of members of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), namely Tommy Tucker Lyttle, the West Belfast Brigadier of the UDA, and his Intelligence Officer, Brian Nelson.

Nelson was subsequently discovered to have been working as an army agent for the shadowy Force Research Unit (FRU).

While there has been a fair amount of formerly classified information already placed in the public domain via the review into the murder of Belfast solicitor Patrick Finucane by the UDA in February 1989, the British government continues to retain some files. Many of these are listed on the National Archives catalogue, accessible online.

The Labour government has recently announced the appointment of the Rt Hon Sir Gary Hickinbottom as Chair of the Patrick Finucane Inquiry, though the Terms of Reference for this public inquiry are yet to be established. As with other public inquiries set up in the past - e.g. into the deaths of Billy Wright and Rosemary Nelson - there is every likelihood these and other files will be de-classified, albeit in redacted format.

Nevertheless, my recent attempt to have some of this information declassified is connected to research I have been doing for a new book entitled Enemies Within, which examines British intelligence operations against the West Belfast UDA.

For the moment, I have been rebuffed under the very legislation that enabled me to apply to have the file released in the first place: The Freedom of Information Act 2000.

The letter from the National Archives FOI Team headlines with: “We are unable to open this document because all of the information is exempt under sections 23, 24, 31(1)(a)(b)(c), 38(1)(b), 40(2) and 41 of the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act 2000. This means that we cannot make the document open to you or to the public in general.”

In circumstances like this, the National Archives are legally bound to carry out a Public Interest Test - in consultation with the relevant government department (in this case the Ministry of Defence) to determine whether they can release material exempt under these clauses in the FoI Act.

They considered arguments in favour of disclosure/non-disclosure, concluding that it was not in the public interest for several reasons:

It is interesting to note that the arguments in favour of non-disclosure hinged on two grounds. First, that disclosure of the file would compromise the PSNI’s law enforcement abilities, presumably in their role of policing the past, and, second, that people - both security forces personnel and paramilitaries - remain at risk from terrorist reprisals, mainly from dissident republicans.

This is in line with the latest comments by PSNI Chief Constable John Boutcher, who issued a press release in October 2024 stating:

“The threat from Northern Ireland Related Terrorism (NIRT) in Northern Ireland is assessed by our security partners, not PSNI. This threat is wholly driven by violent Dissident Republicans and not by any group which supports the Belfast Good Friday Agreement. This threat is an ever-present reality for our officers, staff and their families as shown by the cowardly attempted murder last year of our colleague John Caldwell. The threat from NIRT remains SUBSTANTIAL meaning at any time an attack is likely.”

In other words, Northern Ireland’s security environment remains dynamic and threats emanating from historical crimes committed in the past are judged to be a high probability if information is intentionally or unintentionally released.

One important point to make, however, is that the FoI Act does not operate in a legal vacuum either. Under the UK Data Protection Act 2018, the disclosure of personal information about a third party is exempt.

All this being said, it is intriguing to read Mr Boutcher’s evidence to the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee in April 2025 in which he complained of the role of lawyers in blocking pathways to information retrieval. In his words, ‘what we have done since the Good Friday agreement is try to put brick wall after brick wall in front of information provision, and it feels to me like the unilateral approach by the last Administration was a final high wall to stop information coming out.’

All in all, the idea of the “archives being thrown open” to the public, including professional researchers and historians, is unlikely ever to happen, at least not in the prevailing legal and security contexts.

This raises the question about what kind of information the so-called ‘official history project’ is likely to place in the public domain, especially once the process of “weeding” has taken place and the legal constraints have been applied.

What is needed, urgently, is a new form of what the Soviets called “glasnost” (openness), whereby the archives are thrown open in the most democratic way possible so that the sunlight can act as the best form of disinfectant.

The London UDA statement issued to me reads:

“The OC of the UDA London Brigade has stood himself down. The rest of the Brigade have respected his decision and have also stood down. Collectively they will now function as an old comrades’ group.”

This is significant news.

It is the first time that a loyalist paramilitary group has opted to voluntarily leave the stage of its own volition.

At one time the London UDA was a tiny - yet key - component of the broader loyalist organisation, which numbered tens of thousands of members, mostly in Northern Ireland.

According to the British security services, the UDA was responsible for over 408 deaths between 1970 and 1999.

Although concentrated in the Northern Ireland, the UDA had hundreds of members in London, Glasgow, Liverpool, Corby and other towns and cities across Great Britain.

The UDA’s activities in London were mostly limited.

The group carried out an attack on a pub in Kilburn in December 1975, with the gang responsible having been pooled from Belfast, Glasgow and Yorkshire.

A London-based UDA was subsequently established but it would remain somewhat inactive until it was rejuvenated in the mid-1980s.

Many of its activities were confined to mounting counter-demonstrations against pro-Irish republican demonstrations held in London to protest against internment, Bloody Sunday and British troops deployed to Northern Ireland.

By the late 1980s a new leadership had been installed and took the group in a more militant direction, forming an inner core known as the Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF).

The London leadership made frequent trips to Belfast and sat on the wider organisation’s ruling “Inner Council”.

Two of its leading members, Frank Portinari and Eddie Whicker, were arrested in Birmingham in a sting operation in May 1993. Police officers discovered seven semi-automatic pistols and 260 rounds of ammunition in the boot of a car. Along with another man from Belfast, James McCrudden, Portinari and Whicker were tried at Birmingham Crown Court for possessing firearms with intent to endanger life and possessing firearms in a public place. Portinari received a five-year prison sentence.

It is believed the London UDA had several Labour MPs sympathetic to Irish nationalism under surveillance. Ken Livingston and Diane Abbott were frequently mentioned as potential targets.

In his memoir, Portinari recalls how London UDA members discussed the acquisition of dozens of 9mm Browning handguns, information that soon found its way into the hands of the RUC Special Branch and onwards to the Met Police.

The UDA in Belfast was saturated with agents and informers.

Sir John Stevens, who led investigations into the UDA murder of Belfast solicitor Patrick Finucane, said that of the 210 loyalist paramilitaries he arrested, 207 were agents or informers.

In London the UDA took a ruthless stance on informers.

It was considered active, dangerous and worthy of intense state security and intelligence scrutiny.

The UDA was finally proscribed by the British government in 1992.

In July 1994 the UDA boasted in its New Ulster Defender magazine how it now had several brigades across England, Wales and Scotland and was on a recruitment drive.

Incredibly, UDA membership remained legal in Great Britain.

The group became moribund during Portinari’s imprisonment.

According to one former Metropolitan Police Special Branch officer I spoke to, the London UDA were “very much seen as credible at the upper level. They suffered from wannabes and hangers-on who diluted their reputation. However, anyone in the know realised they had a hard core you didn’t want to mess with.”

In the early 1990s the London UDA enjoyed close connections with the National Front and Combat 18. “Combat 18 and the London UDA were very close at one point. Combat supplied the manpower to counter demonstrations by Irish republican supporters. The relationship subsequently soured, and Combat transferred its allegiance to the Loyalist Volunteer Force,” said the source.

Matthew Collins, head of intelligence for Hope Not Hate, has charted the development of the London UDA for decades. Responding to the announcement, he said, ‘‘This is like someone who hasn’t played international football in 10 years announcing they’ve retired from international football. What about the London UVF? Have they done the same?”

Collins was closely involved in the National Front when they were aligned to the London UDA. “All they are,” he tells me, “and all they ever have been – is a motley crew of hooligans and far right activists who don’t like Irish people or Catholics.”

The UDA has been in existence since the outbreak of the Troubles. It called a ceasefire alongside the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and its allied group the Red Hand Commando (RHC) in 1994.

Both the UDA/UFF and UVF/RHC announced the decommissioning of their extensive arsenal of weapons and explosives in 2009-10.

Nevertheless, this latest development comes at a time when mainstream loyalist paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland have been deliberating on the issue of collective disbandment.

The Loyalist Communities Council (LCC), formed in October 2015, represents mainstream loyalist groups. It claims loyalist paramilitaries ‘eschew all violence and criminality.’

Announcing the formation of the LCC a decade ago, Jonathan Powell, now the UK government’s National Security Adviser, told journalists how, ‘Some may argue that these organisations should just disappear. The experience from around the world suggests that would be a mistake. Other violent groups would simply take over the names UVF, UDA and the Red Hand Commando and carry on with paramilitarism.’

It was imperative, Powell said, that the groups “continue but there is no criminality; there is no violence; they continue in a civil fashion.”

Despite the LCC’s formation a decade ago, little progress has been made by paramilitary groups towards disbandment.

The Independent Reporting Commission, a joint body staffed by the British and Irish governments, has maintained a ‘watching brief’ on ongoing paramilitary activity. In its latest report, published in February 2025, it pointed to the ‘transformation of society over the last three decades’ and ‘a compelling rationale to redouble efforts to close out paramilitarism definitively and complete the journey started in 1994.’

The IRC recommended both governments appoint an ‘Independent Person, who would scope out and prepare the ground with various stakeholders for what a possible formal process of engagement and Group Transition might look like.’ This proved controversial. Nevertheless, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Hillary Benn MP, did announce a ‘scoping exercise’. An appointment is yet to be confirmed.

This new development by the UDA, however, is welcome and may well signal the first domino to fall in bringing about an end to paramilitarism.

As a senior UDA source told me, there had been “no outside pressures or influences. It is purely a recognition that political and cultural activism is the only way forward.”

Aaron Edwards is author of UVF: Behind the Mask and A People Under Siege: The Unionists of Northern Ireland, From Partition to Brexit and Beyond. He is working on a new book, Enemies Within, on the British intelligence war against the UDA/UFF.

Sources close to the UVF tell me that the group’s leadership is close to making a deal with the British government on what is being referred to as a “General Order of Disbandment.”

I have been told how the UVF Brigade Staff has explicitly requested the retention of 30-40 active ‘volunteers’ in each of their “battalion areas” to act as a “praetorian guard” - or “Close Protection team” in security parlance - for its more prominent members.

These small cadres will be known as “veterans associations.”

This is seen by leading members of the group as a necessary means of “dealing with the issue of criminality.”

The revelation comes hot on the heels of what a senior source inside the Loyalist Communities Council (LCC) told BBC Spotlight In June.

The source said loyalist paramilitaries were “on course to be concluded this autumn, with an announcement of the complete dismantling of all paramilitary structures.”

Readers will know how I have been sceptical of talk of “group transition”, for years used as a cover for business as usual.

As Lord Alderdice told the BBC recently, the transition process was “not working.”

"A halt should be called, and you can't call a halt now sooner than today.

"There comes a point when you have to say no, this hasn't been delivered.”

"It's not going to be delivered. And, actually, by continuing we are making it worse."

I am reliably informed this new attempt to put the UVF paramilitary group into ‘cold storage’ will not involve any new decommissioning initiative.

Despite the UVF having instigated a disarmament process in 2009, it is believed they retain an array of handguns, machine guns and assault rifles.

This will undoubtedly lead to fears about a smaller, albeit truncated paramilitary gang remaining deeply embedded in deprived and marginalised communities.

Given the impeccable credentials of this author, and the BBC Spotlight team, I think we should greet this breaking news with a degree of cautious optimism.

More when I get it…

Every other Friday I’d watch a guy rest his pay packet on the top of the fruit machine, taking out a tenner at a time and exchanging it for pound coins at the bar.

He’d then play for most of the evening.

I could tell how he was doing by glancing over to the money he kept beside him in an empty pint glass.

Sometimes his luck was in and he received a pay out, which he would promptly feed back into the machine.

Most of the time his luck ran out.

Yet, he kept ploughing his money into the machine.

It was probably the first time I realised gambling was a recreational pursuit best avoided.

I remember the look of disappointment and annoyance on his face as he was forced to stop playing - his pay packet and pint glass now empty.

As he walked away there was always someone on hand to take over, including that one enterprising individual who would inevitably go on to win the jackpot!

What is the ‘Sunk-Cost Fallacy’?

In many ways, the guy who lost his weekly earnings found himself trapped in what behavioural scientists call the ‘sunk-cost fallacy’.

It’s a cognitive bias by which you continue an endeavour once an investment in money, effort, or time has been made. In one classic study psychologists found how those who had incurred a sunk cost were more likely to inflate their assessment of how likely a project was to succeed than those who had not (Arkes and Blumer, 1985).

When I think of the continuing facade of paramilitary ‘group transition’, I think of the guy in his work clothes, returning ever expectant to the gambling machine, week after week, content to throw his money away in anticipation of that one big “pay out!”

It was how I interpreted the comments of Lord John Alderdice who this week was quoted by BBC Northern Ireland as having said loyalist transition is “not working.”

“There comes a point when you have to say no, this hasn’t been delivered. It’s not going to be delivered. And, actually, by continuing we are making it worse. What I’ve seen is more talking about transition, and transformation, and no doubt with an invoice provided, for how much money is needed to be made available from public services in order to pay off these people” - Lord Alderdice, BBC News.

Inevitably a senior LCC source was quoted in the same reporting promising that “a final push for loyalist transition is imminent.”

On the face of it there is nothing wrong with the LCC taking such an upbeat view; interestingly it reflects a collective view of government bodies and statutory agencies who are united in shared hope of the one big pay off being just around the corner.

If only they keep throwing money at the problem it will eventually pay off.

This is the sunk-cost fallacy par excellence.

Preparing for Peace, Readying the Retirement Fund

Anyone holding their breath for an end of loyalist paramilitarism died of asphyxiation long ago.

Billions of pounds have been spent investing in the promise of ending paramilitarism and there is little to show for it other than the drop in the sectarian death rate caused by bombs and bullets.

In reality few acknowledge the indirect deaths that come as an inevitable by-product of the persistence of paramilitary structures.

In 1994 the UVF/RHC and UDA/UFF called a collective ceasefire, which led to a moratorium on killing Catholic civilians. It said little about the group’s intent towards the communities they lived in close proximity to, with both groups murdering dozens of Protestants over the next decade.

Although the Good Friday Agreement (1998) signalled a new departure, the paramilitaries stayed in place.

In fact, they simply grew in number.

Recruitment, illicit activities, paramilitary assaults and murders continued unabated.

Then in 2007 the UVF said it would put its weapons ‘beyond use’.

In 2009 the UVF and UDA finally signalled a more permanent end to their terror campaign.

Within months they were killing people who stood against them.

For the past 15 years they had become an even greater feature of the fabric of deprived and marginalised communities.

This is despite the British and Irish governments and Northern Ireland Executive pumping millions on pounds into what is known euphemistically as the “conflict transformation process.”

You might argue that this is akin to paying someone to give an undertaking not to burgle your house by entering the front door, while they go in through the back door and help themselves!

To place this in parlance now familiar in multiple Independent Reporting Commission publications, the leaderships of paramilitary groups do not “sanction” illicit activities but they cannot speak for their individual members. The moral cowardice is evident, as too is the cognitive dissonance necessary to keep up the facade.

Photo Ops for Peace

So why have we not seen the end of paramilitarism in Northern Ireland?

There are many reasons for the abject failure to tackle this insidious challenge.

Some veteran police officers I speak to in the course of my research tell me it’s because the community “must tolerate them.”

This sweeping generalisation does little to capture the complicated love-hate relationship between the community and paramilitaries.

In fact, the Northern Ireland Life and Times survey data tells is that there has been a significant increase in the percentage of respondents who strongly agree that paramilitary groups create fear and intimidation.

What is also striking from this data is how consistent it is when those living in mainly Loyalist areas are surveyed.

I would further argue that paramilitaries are tolerated by all parts of society because well-meaning people, often living far beyond these areas, cling to the hope of the bigger windfall.

The problem with this cognitive bias is that it has become a deeply embedded logical fallacy.

It is unlikely to change without a revolution in mindsets throughout society.

I recall meeting a senior police officer some years back. I was introduced to him by a civil servant who announced I was the author of “a very good book on the UVF.” I was shocked when the officer in question asked me if I’d “spoken to… [such and such],” referring to one paramilitary leader by his nickname as if he was his squash partner!

You see, this is part of the problem with dislodging paramilitaries.

We have been told for decades that smiling photo ops demonstrate “how far we have come in Northern Ireland.”

I suppose it depends what people mean by that observation.

Do they mean temporally in terms of the 30 years since paramilitaries told us they were going away or the successive waypoints like 2007, 2009, 2015, etc, when they reiterated that view.

Or do they mean spatially in terms of the continuing separation of Protestants and Catholics who now live in a form of what Professor John Nagle and Dr Mary Alice Clancy call “Benign apartheid”?

Whatever route we have taken, a good proportion of people assume paramilitaries are on board the journey we are taking.

I am here to tell you, dear reader, from many years of professional experience, they are not.

Worse still, if you permit me another metaphor, they have never had any intention of riding off into the sunset.

Meanwhile, the great and the good fall over themselves to remain on first name terms with paramilitary leaders, even writing them references when they are caught ‘red-handed’ with a bag of guns in the boot of their car!

These ‘pillars of society’ persevere in their cognitive dissonance, while ordinary people are left with the stone cold reality.

Paramilitaries remain, and, worse still, it would appear sunlight has failed to act as an appropriate disinfectant in exposing their activities.

The Limits of State Power

In many ways all this reflects a more worrying trend, i.e. the failure of the state and its institutions to remove illegal armed groups from our midst, resulting in their de facto recognition as “interlocutors”, “stakeholders” or, worse still, “peacebuilders”.

This is not unusual, for there are plenty of examples worldwide, in the Middle East, South America and Sub-Saharan and North Africa, of paramilitary groups remaining in place years after internal armed conflicts end.

It speaks to the limits of state power and the reconfiguration of sovereignty.

I have sympathy with ordinary people who have lost faith in a system whose representatives are happy to pose for photo opportunities with the very same people they condemn.

It gives paramilitary groups a sense of agency, of stature, of, dare I say it, ‘legitimacy’.

It is deeply harmful to community safety.

Perhaps, as Lord Alderdice has said, we need a more coercive response - more stick and less carrot - to meet the insidious challenge these groups continue to pose.

For the reasons outlined above, this is unlikely to dislodge the logic of the sunk-cost fallacy underpinning the irrationality of paramilitary ‘group transition’ amidst a decades-long peace process.

Like that guy in the “wee Blues club,” standing patiently in his work overalls, nursing a long pint while observing his monthly pay packet vanish, the community await the ever-diminishing returns on their investments in the peace process.

Click on the video above to hear about the inside story of how I broke the story of the UVF’s expulsion of Winston “Winkie” Irvine.

I talk about the Irvine case, the mood music surrounding its “exceptional circumstances”, and how the UVF finally decided to expel one of their top commanders.

I explain in detail how I receiv…

Read more

It has become clear from further reports finding their way to me from multiple sources that a secret meeting did indeed take place on the Shankill on Wednesday night.

As I reported on this blog yesterday, the meeting was attended by prominent members of the UVF.

Read more

Allegations were made in this forum specifically relating to the conduct of Winston 'Winkie' Irvine.

I am told these allegations ranged from the theft of large amounts of money from UVF coffers, drug-dealing and o…

Read more

Some years ago I assisted former diplomat turned author Alastair Kerr when he was looking into Nairac’s time on his Sandhurst commissioning course.

Kerr’s book Betrayal: The Murder of Robert Nairac GC (2015; 2017) remains the most comprehensive study of the life of Robert Nairac.

When read in conjunction with Toby Harnden’s excellent Bandit Country: The IRA and South Armagh (1999; 2024), there really is no excuse for walking away from both books without a full appreciation of what Captain Nairac encountered during his time in the Irish borderlands.

I had gone back home to Belfast to research my next book, Enemies Within, on the Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF) terror group.

I was also in Derry to work on a more personal project that may result in a book or, more likely, a short media project sometime in the next year.

So, when a close friend dumped a file on my lap regarding Captain Nairac’s disappearance, I decided to set off on a journey that would take me into the dark heart of ‘Bandit Country’ and the Provisional IRA squad responsible for Robert Nairac’s forced disappearance.

This file did not come to me by accident. I have been made aware of a small but determined group of veterans who have begun a renewed search for the remains of Captain Nairac.

They are not people who normally step out of the shadows and so have asked me, via an intermediary, to look again at the evidence available to see if we can ascertain exactly what happened to Robert.

There are merits to looking again at a case like this.

It remains one of the more high profile forced disappearances of the Troubles and the only one of a serving British Army officer or soldier.

I’ve spent a good deal of my career as an academic lecturer at Sandhurst teaching Officer Cadets and Officers about the big picture of international relations.

Yet, much of my professional research over the past quarter of a century has given me a broader and deeper appreciation of the minutiae of British Army operations in a variety of its theatres since the end of the Second World War.

I am particularly interested in how our officers have responded to the security challenges facing them, whether that is in the small wars and insurgencies they battled in Palestine, Malaya, Cyprus, Kenya, Aden, Northern Ireland, Iraq or Afghanistan.

I am a historian by training (my first degree was in Modern and Contemporary History), which has seen me read into a broad conceptual sweep of topics from the English Civil War to the rise and fall of the Soviet Union and Ireland since the plantation to the present day.

I have also become somewhat curious about the cerebral challenges facing those officers who worked in intelligence, for it is on intelligence operations that we see all aspects of British fighting power (conceptual, physical and moral) come together to demand more from our young men and women.

With that in mind there is no better exemplar of the moral and physical courage demanded by the nation of those who we send off to fight on our behalf.

Captain Robert Nairac is one of those whose story opens a much bigger conversation about what we ask our brave servicemen and servicewomen to do while on operations, the nature and changing character of the adversaries they face, and, of course, the legacy this leaves for future generations.

In the course of the past few weeks I have learned more about the Provisional IRA and British security forces operations in the mid to late 1970s than ever before.

What I have uncovered about the Provos, in particular, and, crucially, about how they operated and what they likely did with Captain Nairac’s body is astonishing.

Watch this space for more revelations in Part Two of my series on Captain Robert Nairac GC, coming in a few weeks’ time.

It is a striking portrait of an Army officer in number two dress uniform sat on a rock by a tree stump with the college behind him.

He is wearing three pips on each of his shoulders to denote the rank of Army Captain. On his right knee rests a peaked cap, complete with Grenadier Guards cap-badge.

The Grenadiers motto is Honi soit qui mal y pense, translated from the French as “Shame on anyone who thinks evil of it”, generally meant to point towards the evil intentions of the enemy.

There are two medal ribbons on the officer’s chest.

One is the General Service Medal (Northern Ireland clasp) and another is the George Cross (GC), the UK’s highest award for acts of heroism or courage in circumstances of extreme danger, other than those performed in the face of the enemy. It ranks alongside the Victoria Cross, which is the highest military award for valour and devotion to duty in the face of the enemy.

Below the portrait is an accompanying image, depicting the Guards officer perched in a photographer’s studio wearing full dress uniform, with a distinctive red tunic and bearskin headdress. In the middle of the mounted frame are miniatures of the officer’s medals and on the right of that is the citation for the GC, which was posthumously conferred upon him on 13 February 1978.

The inscription for the GC details the circumstances that led to the award.

It recounts a heroic struggle by the officer as blows reigned down on him from up to seven men, some who were members of the Provisional IRA.

The officer was then abducted and taken away to be tortured.

Despite the ferocity of the attack on him he refused to reveal anything to his captors.

I have taken several visitors to see the painting since I joined the academic faculty at Sandhurst.

Many have heard of the mythology surrounding the officer, Captain Robert Nairac.

I have even lectured Officer Cadets beneath Captain Nairac’s portrait, telling them something of his life and military service, including the personal qualities he displayed on the night he disappeared on 14/15 May 1977.

The GC citation lists these traits as ‘exceptional courage,’ including ‘acts of the greatest heroism in circumstances of extreme peril,’ which ‘showed devotion to duty and personal courage second to none.’

Who was Robert Nairac?

Robert Laurence Nairac was born on 31 August 1948 in Mauritius, off the coast of East Africa, to parents Barbara and Maurice. The family returned to the UK when Robert turned one, where his father, a doctor, took up a post in Sunderland.

The young Nairac was educated at Ampleforth, a Catholic public school, and later ‘went up’ to Oxford where he read Medieval and Military History at Lincoln College. While at Oxford in the late 1960s, he joined the Grenadier Guards as a University Cadet/Second Lieutenant on probation.

Upon completion of his studies, Nairac attended the post-University course at Sandhurst in September 1972, subsequently commissioning into the Grenadier Guards as a Lieutenant with seniority.

Nairac’s first operational deployment was with Number 1 Company of the 2nd Battalion, the Grenadier Guards, in Ardoyne, north Belfast, from July through to October 1973.

One officer who served with Nairac at the time told a regimental historian: ‘Robert was fantastic with the Irish youth’ in Ardoyne, visiting the sporting club and introducing his comrade to the club committee where he ‘sang rebel songs with them, knowing more about Irish history than all of them.’

It was clear his first operational tour had a profound effect on him - he became enthralled by the people, the culture and the history of the place.

After the battalion returned to England in late 1973, Nairac volunteered for ‘Special Duties’.

In the spring of 1974 he attended and passed selection for the newly formed Special Reconnaissance Unit (SRU), which operated under a variety of cover names, including the Northern Ireland Training and Assistance Team (NITAT), 14th Intelligence Company and “the Det”. Nairac deployed to Northern Ireland on 21 May 1974.

According to one source, Nairac’s first appointment with the Det was as a Military Intelligence Liaison Officer (MILO) attached to 3 (Infantry) Brigade, the major tactical formation responsible for all military operations in South Armagh.

Nairac also served as a double-hatted MILO in the 8 (Infantry) Brigade area, responsible for the north of the Province later that year.

He returned to the Grenadiers in April 1975 and in June-July ran a course for NCOs in Pirbright, before deploying on exercise with his battalion on Salisbury Plain from mid to late July 1975. Nairac went on leave on 31 May 1975, travelling north to Scotland by road accompanied by his friend, Captain David Sewell. He subsequently attended the Junior Command and Staff (JCSC) course in early 1976.

Upon completion of the course Nairac volunteered to return as a MILO for 3 Brigade.

“Bandit Country”

In 1976 BBC Panorama aired a documentary on South Armagh, calling it by the name soldiers serving there had given it: “Bandit Country.”

It ran an interview with Lieutenant Colonel Philip Davies, the Commanding Officer of the Royal Scots. “The people are not friendly,” he told the reporter. “They are very clearly republican sympathisers… It is a region ‘under siege’ but we do need the people to cooperate.”

The documentary came in the immediate aftermath of the Provisional IRA massacre of ten Protestant workers in Kingsmills, not far from Bessbrook. British Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson responded to the escalating sectarian conflict by authorising the deployment of the SAS.

When pressed about the government’s decision, Colonel Davies said he couldn’t comment on the specifics but added that “a particular role of theirs is covert surveillance which they’re very expert at.”

The Royal Scots were replaced by the 3rd Battalion of the Parachute Regiment (3 Para). Their Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Colonel Peter Morton, later wrote of the IRA that they were ‘easily the most successful in the Province,’ especially given their proven ability to kill or seriously injure members of the security forces.

Under the Freedom of Information Act (2000), I have secured the release of a number of declassified Top Secret intelligence dossiers on this period. These documents suggest that the South Armagh PIRA posed a considerable threat to the security forces in the mid-1970s.

They had demonstrated their ability to perfect new ways of killing soldiers and police officers.

IRA volunteers were designing and testing innovative new weapon systems, including various versions of the home made mortar, at an incredible rate.

By early 1977 British military intelligence discovered that the IRA in South Armagh had developed a brand new ‘heavy bomb’, consisting of 35lbs of commercial explosive in a makeshift warhead. Intelligence Officers warned how such a weapon ‘would have a far better chance of penetrating our defensive screens.’ While a previous version of this home-made mortar had been fired at Newry UDR camp and Bessbrook Mill with minimal impact, the IRA were proving capable of quickly adapting their deadly ingenuity to yield more death and destruction.

This extract from a recently declassified report gives a flavour of the emerging threat:

MILOs in the 3 Brigade area would likely have been tasked with collecting as much intelligence on these highly destructive weapons as they could lay their hands on.

With attacks in South Armagh occurring almost every day, it is not difficult to appreciate the enormous task facing those, like Captain Nairac, who had previously been deployed in the intelligence war against the IRA.

What was Robert Nairac doing when he went missing?

There has been much speculation about what exactly Captain Nairac was doing on the night he went missing.

We know from his GC citation that he was based at Headquarters 3 Brigade and that his task on the evening he disappeared was ‘connected to surveillance operations.’

It is worth delving into the detail of how he came to find himself in such a perilous situation.

On 14 May 1977 Captain Nairac signed out of Bessbrook, according to the Ops Officer, Captain David Alan Collett (formerly of the Parachute Regiment), at 2125hrs and was scheduled to return by 2330hrs.

Nairac’s journey from Bessbrook Mill to his destination, the Three Steps Inn at Drumintee, took approximately 30 minutes.

We know from a statement Captain Collett subsequently gave to the RUC that Nairac radioed the Ops Room en route to Drumintee at 2148hrs, 2152hrs, 2156hrs and lastly at 2158hrs. In his final call, Nairac said he ‘would be closing communications and he indicated he had reached his destination, the Three Steps Inn.’

To say the rationale for Nairac’s visit to the Three Steps that evening is contested is an understatement.

John Parker, author of Death of a Hero: Captain Robert Nairac, GC and the Undercover War in Northern Ireland (1999), wrote at length about the risks Nairac took in 1976-77. He interviewed several of those who served with the SAS squadrons rotating into Bessbrook at the time.

Ken Connor was one of those SAS troops who had already gone on record in his memoir Ghost Force (1998) to complain about Nairac’s overconfidence and specifically how he ‘appeared to have been allowed to get out of control’ while becoming ‘lax about checking in with his base.’

This chimes with what another former soldier I interviewed told me about the rumours still floating around months after Nairac’s disappearance.

‘Nairac was a battalion Int Officer who fancied himself as a spy,’ he said. ‘He was a classic case of somebody who should have stuck to collating reports in his office.’

In the course of my own investigation into the abduction, murder and disappearance of Captain Nairac, I interviewed a former RUC Special Branch officer who told me he worked closely with him.

It’s fair to say he saw Nairac as a ‘loose canon’ and was convinced his superiors ‘weren’t aware of everything he was up to.’

The former SB officer I spoke to did concede that the Army was very much in charge in the border region at the time and so he could not have known the full inner workings of the military’s intelligence capability.

This widely-held view of Nairac as a ‘loose canon’ has gained considerable traction over the past five decades.

One man who did much to spread the myth was Clive Fairweather, a self-professed former member of the SAS.

Fairweather gave John Parker many of his insights into military and special forces operations in the late 1970s. According to Parker, Fairweather served as the G2 (Int) at HQNI at the time Nairac went missing.

In a chance encounter with former Provisional IRA member Anthony McIntyre at a prisons conference in Scotland in 2006, Fairweather referred to Nairac as “a stupid cunt.”

At this point it is worth mentioning that one SAS veteran I spoke to told me Fairweather had a penchant for embellishing his role in SAS operations, while minimising the actions of others.

This is certainly reflected in McIntyre’s incisive pen portrait of the man himself.

Nevertheless, I would contend that such a flippant view of Nairac as a ‘maverick fool with a death wish’, repeated by someone with perceived authority, is enough to do lasting damage.

When considered in conjunction with the Provisional IRA narrative about Nairac - discussed in Part 2 of this article - it became toxic.

It would not be seriously challenged until biographer Alistair Kerr published his well-received Betrayal: The Murder of Robert Nairac GC (2017).

In line with Kerr’s more objective account of Robert Nairac, it could be argued that the young captain was operating according to the conventions of military doctrine (essentially the military’s written compilation of best practice) at the time.

After all, the same doctrine, known as Counter-Revolutionary Operations (1969; republished in 1977), was widely distributed across the officer corps.

It reminded those involved in clandestine activity how ‘good liaison is of extreme importance,’ especially between G2 (Intelligence) and G3 (Operations), as well as with the local police Special Branch.’

It was Nairac’s job to build and maintain these key relationships between the newly arrived Special Forces toops, the regular soldiers and those locally recruited members of the RUC and UDR.

And it was no mean feat.

According to The Sunday Times Insight Team, Nairac ‘rightly believed that the key to British success against the IRA was good intelligence and he also believed that he could provide it on his forays out into the community.’

It is clear that some RUC SB officers found Nairac easy to work with and dedicated to tackling paramilitary violence from whatever quarter.

‘It was almost as if what he was doing was a forerunner for the FRU [Force Research Unit, the British Army’s clandestine source handling capability established in 1980]'',’ a former Branchman told me.

Part-time source handling

If we accept the British government’s public acknowledgement that Captain Nairac was on duty the night he disappeared and that he was employed on ‘surveillance operations,’ it stands to reason he was performing an official military task.

As an Army officer who had recently passed JCSC, he would have been aware of the need to align his activities with what was known as ‘the higher commander’s intent’. At the time this was summarised according to the three-pronged strategy of reassurance, deterrence and attrition.

Operating at the interface of security forces operations was second nature to Nairac, after all he had previously completed two tours as a Det Liaison Officer.

From a document unearthed at the National Archives in London and published by researcher Tom Griffin on PowerBase we know that:

“The prime task of the SRU is to conduct covert surveillance of terrorists as a preliminary to an arrest carried out by security forces in uniform. The SRU may also be used to contact and handle agents or informers and for the surveillance and protection of persons or property under terrorist threat. The SRU works to a great extent on Special Branch information and the Special Branch have a high regard for it.”

There was even detailed guidance available to those officers responsible for clandestine counter-insurgency missions in Counter-Revolutionary Operations:

“Good agents and informers, controlled by trained handlers, can be among the best sources of information, but failure to control and co-ordinate them, and the growth of private networks, will lead to compromise, false information and double agents” - MoD, Counter-Revolutionary Operations.

Thanks to a recent investigation by Belfast Telegraph journalist Sam McBride we now know Nairac had likely gone to Drumintee ‘in the hope of meeting an informant.’

This complements John Parker’s earlier findings, where some of his SAS interviewees spoke of Nairac’s ‘part-time source handling.’

New revelations

In my own investigation into the case, I have come into possession of eyewitness statements given to the RUC, which detail Captain Nairac’s last-known movements.

They contain shocking new revelations, including how one eyewitness saw Nairac arrive at the Three Steps in his red Triumph not at 2200hrs as previously reported but 15 minutes after that time. He described both ‘the car and the person who was driving it’ as ‘strangers to me.’

What is significant about this sighting is not that Nairac arrived later than billed but that he arrived hot on the heels of two ‘well-dressed’ males in their early 20s.

They were seen being dropped off at the pub by a metallic grey coloured Ford Escort, which had come from the Newry direction and then drove off towards Forkhill.

Crucially, these two individuals had never been seen in the bar before.

They were described by several eyewitnesses inside and outside the premises as ‘strangers’.

As one eyewitness watched Nairac get out of his car and enter the bar he became fixated on something ‘unusual about the number plates’; ‘some of the numbers were covered in cement.’

When he walked over to the car for a closer look, he ‘saw a number of cigarette packets lying in the back seat,’ as if they had been furiously smoked by one person (or, perhaps, two people) who had been sat in the car for a long time.

The man thought no more about it.

At around 2330hrs the eyewitness said he saw three people go ‘up towards the top of the car park.’

Although it was ‘pretty dark at the time,’ he was ‘fairly sure that the three men were the same strangers who I had seen arriving earlier.’

To be continued in Part Two.

Appeal for Information

• If anyone has any information about the abduction and murder of Captain Robert Nairac on 14-15 May 1977, please get in touch with the Bring Robert Home campaign via BringRobertHome2027@gmail.com. All correspondence will be treated with the utmost discretion.

• The Bring Robert Home campaign is a loose network of veterans whose sole aim is to secure the return of Robert’s body to his family for a proper Christian burial, according to the customs of his Roman Catholic faith.

  

That’s what An Phoblacht, the official media outlet of the Provisional IRA, wrote about me in a review of my otherwise critically acclaimed book, UVF: Behind the Mask (2017).

I see such waspish words as a compliment not an impediment.

We all carry baggage of sorts.

Mine, according to Provo News, is that I “grew up in a staunchly loyalist area of Rathcoole in north Belfast” where “senior UVF figures… were close family friends.” Worse still, reported the Provos, I’m now “a Senior Lecturer at the British Army’s Royal Military Academy in Sandhurst!”

Of course, being on first name terms with senior paramilitary leaders has had its uses, especially when I came to write a history of the UVF. My ongoing research and writing on paramilitary activity in Northern Ireland has formed the basis of my contributions to a range of media outlets, UK Parliamentary select committees, government briefings and both civilian and military audiences worldwide.

Back in the old country I attract a fair amount of antagonism from certain quarters.

A handful seem upset by my capacity to self-reflect; a tiny number are convinced I’m giving away what amounts to their “Trident nuclear codes”.

Interestingly, Provo News took a vow of silence on me after I published my extensive exposé of touts inside the IRA, Agents of Influence (2021) while some loyalists - who claimed to have fallen out with me a few years earlier - cheered me on.

Such is life!

In the words of one former Provisional IRA member who has become a close friend, I became “the man who knew too much.”

So, strap in, dear reader.

If you like your authors “far too close” to their subject-matter “to exhibit a meaningful degree of objectivity”, this is the place for you!

In Northern Ireland, however, feelings have been mixed.

Senior DUP politician Ian Paisley Jnr said it did not go far enough in restoring British sovereignty in Northern Ireland nor the Province’s place within the United Kingdom internal market.

In a blunt riposte, Paisley said it “didn’t cut the mustard.”

The DUP was quick to rebuke Paisley by issuing a statement that he did not speak for the party.

The Agreement itself, nevertheless, makes clear that it does put ‘beyond doubt Northern Ireland’s place in our precious Union, consistent with the Acts of Union and the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement.’

However, it is light on detail here, dealing with the frictions around trade and movement of goods, people and pets than on how the Windsor Framework restores the essence of the East-West strand of the Good Friday Agreement.

Belfast Telegraph Northern Editor Sam McBride informs us that the Windsor Framework does not meet the DUP’s 7 tests by which they have said they are prepared to re-enter the Stormont Executive.

The basis by which the DUP now proceeds on the matter will be revealing about where the party is headed politically.

Speaking to one source close to the DUP today, it has been made clear to me that elements within the party are pushing for the acceptance of the Windsor Agreement on the basis of the UK Government taking back control of VAT and Excise.

For many political unionists, taxation without representation goes to the heart of the matter of what sovereignty means for them.

For those who believe in this fundamentalist reading of sovereignty, however, the sticking point lies elsewhere, particularly with the Principle of Consent as built into the framework of all political agreements in Northern Ireland since the 1990s.

It is clear that some Ulster Loyalists still believe that the Principle of Consent is first and foremost a veto to be exercised when they perceive their community identity to be under threat.

Other unionists who take a much more pragmatic reading of the Principle of Consent are more at ease with it falling into line with the exercise of a pragmatic, cross-community approach in tackling political issues.

The divisions over where sovereignty ultimately rests runs deep within unionism and loyalism and, as history attests, will undoubtedly now be played out as members of this community realign under Pro- and Anti-Windsor Agreement banners.

Sources close to the DUP have told me that this realignment has already happened within the DUP who are now gearing up to fight out a civil war akin to that which bedevilled the Conservative Party over Brexit.

Earlier this afternoon a source close to the Loyalist Community Council (LCC), representing loyalist paramilitary groups, told me that a senior member of the DUP had met with the umbrella group to assist them in formulating a response to the Windsor Framework.

This may be confirmed by a cryptic tweet by DUP Sir Jeffery Donaldson, which reads: ‘Politics and democratic processes are the only way that we will succeed in overcoming the challenges of the Protocol. Violence and/or the threat of it, is wrong and never acceptable.’

Coming after clearly manufactured threats of UVF violence in reaction to the deal last weekend, this is only to be welcomed.

However, the UVF is not the only group to worry about here.

Sources close to the UDA’s power-base in North Antrim confirm that they are ‘not for accepting the Windsor Agreement.’

Although we need not concern ourselves with the views of every paramilitary faction, such obstinance nonetheless points to the difficulty of gaining a shared consensus amongst the loyalist paramilitary fraternity, especially since the LCC does not represent the totality of views within militant loyalism.

And, of course, we know this matters because the residual threat from all forms of paramilitarism in Northern Ireland remains a clear and present danger, according to the Independent Reporting Commission.

As the major electoral force within Ulster unionism, it remains to be seen whether the DUP can provide the necessary political leadership to the broader unionist and loyalist community.

There is much to play for in the coming days and weeks ahead.