My Life in Loyalism

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The tabloids have filled plenty of column inches about me, and thus people perceive me in a certain way which is based on what they read or hear . Unlike 1998 it won’t be a role which is internal to the talks, but nevertheless the loyalist voice is an important one and I have no doubt that there will be an effort to persuade loyalism to adopt a position favourable to the proposed deal. After violent clashes between members of both groups on the Shankill Road the UVF shot and killed two men close to the UDA's West Belfast leadership, Jackie Coulter and Bobby Mahood. The support of the PUP, which has long-established links with the UVF and other loyalist representatives was crucial in concluding the deal 25 years ago that largely ended decades of conflict in Northern Ireland.

In 2000 Hutchinson was caught up in a loyalist feud that broke out between the UVF and the West Belfast Brigade of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA). Hutchinson is a teetotaller, but much of the social life of Loyalism took place in pubs and clubhouses. Gareth Mulvenna has taken the time and effort to be able to share a narrative seldom heard, for which he should be congratulated. As he explains in the introduction: “I want to take responsibility for my actions, actions I took because of the circumstances I and other young men found ourselves in during the violent early 1970s in Northern Ireland. After losing his council seat at the 2023 local elections, Hutchinson resigned as PUP leader the following month, succeeded by Russell Watton.An insider's view of the pressures on young people in Belfast and, for him, the journey from football fan, to football hooligan, to paramilitary youth leader and finally to convicted murderer. In October 1974 he was one of two UVF members arrested – and subsequently convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment – for the murders of Edward Morgan and Michael Loughran, two Catholic half-brothers who were shot from a passing car as they walked to work. That said, he is adamant it cannot lead to any dilution of Britishness within Northern Ireland, but is dismissive of any suggestion there might be a violent loyalist backlash.

Mr Hutchinson said the principle of powersharing worked more effectively at council level than it did at Stormont. However, Billy Hutchinson added that all those who now advocate the deal “should be able to commit their position to writing”. The Open University is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority in relation to its secondary activity of credit broking. One of the principles set out by the CLMC in this announcement was that “there must be no dilution of the democratic procedure through which the rights of self determination of the people of Northern Ireland are guaranteed”. In equal terms, as touched on above, those who advocate the deal should be able to commit their position to writing, setting out clearly what they say to that which has been committed to writing by those opposed to the deal.The greatest example, identified in recent years prior to his passing by Lord Trimble, was that the principle of consent was presented in the political text and much public spin as meaning a cast-iron protection against any diminution of the constitutional status of Northern Ireland as part of the Union, but in the legal text- as we discovered in recent years with the subjugation of the Acts of Union- it in fact turned out that, legally, it meant much less. Billy Hutchinson is President of the PUP, former PUP leader and served as an MLA and Belfast City Councillor.