LONDON: After a month of violent protests that left more than 40 police officers injured, dozens of rioters arrested, live rounds being fired on the streets of Belfast, politicians’ offices torched and now the prospect of the home of Northern Ireland’s first minister being picketed, the union flag dispute has become a lightning rod for widespread loyalist disaffection from the political process.

A spontaneous protest movement about Belfast city council’s decision in early December to restrict the number of days the Union flag flies above city hall has morphed into a wider organisation whose actions, its opponents claim, are destabilising Northern Ireland.

Now, as the smoke clears from the battle grounds, especially in working class east Belfast, loyalists are threatening to take their protests south of the border. The newly constituted Ulster People's Forum will hold a rally outside the Irish parliament next Saturday as well as a series of demonstrations close to one of the most unstable sectarian interfaces in Belfast.

A loyalist working class/underclass disconnected from the mainstream unionist parties has established a movement that has become a fresh focus for many other grievances ranging from social deprivation to the alleged maltreatment of unionist victims of the Troubles. Some of its demands are wildly unrealistic, such as the reintroduction of direct rule and the suspension of devolution.

The leaders emerging range from a former soldier who sells Nazi uniforms from a shop in Carrickfergus to veteran loyalists previously lukewarm about their paramilitary leadership's support for the peace process and the Good Friday agreement.

Many of the protests that later turned violent have been organised on an ad hoc basis through social media. The “foot soldiers” of the disorder are mostly young men and teenagers wearing the uniform of hoodie and football scarf wrapped around face. And while some loyalist paramilitaries have been in the vanguard, such as members of the Ulster Volunteer Force, they have been unprepared for the depth of anger within their communities. Leading figures in the UVF have said they are concerned that extreme, anti-ceasefire elements, including loyalists with connections to the British far right, are trying to exploit the flag issue.

Ulster People's Forum spokesman Willie Frazer said three coaches would take 150 people to the Irish capital this weekend. “We will be challenging the Irish government to change its flag flying policy and stop flying the tricolour 365 days per year over the Dail. If nationalists insist we can't do this in Belfast, in our capital, then there should be full equality on this island. They should take down their flag.”

Frazer added that among those coming to Dublin would be unionist victims of the IRA during the Troubles.

“They are coming down to tell the taoiseach, Enda Kenny, and his government that they have reneged on their promise to meet and listen to them, to hear their concerns about collusion between the Irish state and the IRA.”

He also confirmed that the nascent protest movement would be targeting the home of Northern Ireland's first minister and Democratic Unionist leader, Peter Robinson.

“When the idea that we march on Peter Robinson's home was raised at a meeting of the Ulster People's Forum last week in Newtonards it was met with wild cheering. There is a lot of pressure on to picket Robinson's home, to make it clear to him on his doorstep that he is letting the loyalist, Protestant people down,” added Frazer.

He claimed that there had been meetings about the flag dispute from Enniskillen in the west to Bangor in the east. But the movement's critics believe their hardline rhetoric is enabling dissident republicans to portray themselves as defenders of embattled nationalists and Catholics worried about loyalist attacks.

The Continuity IRA has warned loyalists to stay from the Irish capital this weekend; the demonstrators are arriving in a state which itself has lost its economic sovereignty to the IMF and EU and where there is little sympathy for the international image of Ireland portrayed by the northern protests.

A number of planned loyalist demonstrations close to a sectarian divide in east Belfast are also in danger of “creating fresh space for republican dissident terrorists”, according the MP for the area. Naomi Long, the Alliance MP who has been the subject of death threats because of her party's role in the Belfast city council flag vote, was responding to reports that republican opponents of the peace process have offered to “defend” the Catholic enclave of Short Strand.

Long said the increasingly sectarian nature of the protests was “enabling dissident republicans to offer themselves as defenders of their people”.

“There are reflections here of 1969 and 1970 when people feeling under threat unfortunately looked towards paramilitary groups to defend them.”

By arrangement with the Guardian