Pressure on weapons

Leslie Mitchell was speaking to the Sentinel on the growing hiatus surrounding the murder of loyalist Bobby Moffett on the Shankill Road almost two weeks ago. The murder resulted in the now former leader of the PUP, Dawn Purvis, resigning her position.

Ms Purvis said her position had become increasingly untenable as the PUP should not have been expected to take responsibility for the actions of others. And, the interim leader of the PUP, Dr John Kyle has since admitted that it is his belief that not all of the UVF’s arsenal had been destroyed.

In a statement concerning the resignation of Ms Purvis, the Londonderry Branch of the PUP said: “It was with great regret that the local branch of the PUP learned of the resignation from the party of Dawn Purvis. Dawn had worked tirelessly for the working classes over many years and was the sole voice of loyalism in the Stormont Assembly.

“We look forward to having a newly elected party leader and to a newly energised and focused party will once again provide a strong voice and leadership to the working class unionist/loyalist community.

“The current structures within the Progressive Unionist Party remain steadfast and very much up for the many political challenges ahead. We are determined to provide strong political leadership and direction for our community.”

The UVF were said to have formally decommissioned their arsenal in front of independent witnesses in June 2009. This came almost two years after the UVF issued a statement on May 3, 2007, stating that after negotiations with then Irish Prime Minister, Bertie Ahern and former PSNI Chief Constable, Hugh Orde, the UVF would transform itself into a “non-military and civilanised” organisation.

At that point the UVF said they would retain their weapons, but that they would be put “beyond the use of normal volunteers,” and the weapons would remain under the watch of the UVF leadership.

However, following the murder of Bobby Moffett, police have linked the killing to the UVF and suggested that the killing may have been sanctioned by the organisation’s leadership.

The latest report from the International Monitoring Commission concluded that the decommissioning of UVF weapons had been a “very significant and positive development, which was clear evidence of the organisation’s coherence and strategic direction.”

The report however also noted that some members had been expelled from the UVF and “some members remained involved in crime, and we could not rule out that some arms had been retained in some parts of the organisation.”

Londonderry PUP Chairman, Leslie Mitchell however told the Sentinel that he would refer back to the UVF statement of May 2007.

“This would refer to all weapons under the control of the UVF and Red Hand Commando,” he said.

Mr Mitchell also stated that this could not take into account weaponry beyond those limits of control and added: “I honestly don’t believe that other organisations such as the IRA and the INLA got rid of all their weapons.”

The PUP man told the Sentinel that there was still “a very strong will” at local level to keep the party going.

“There was a feeling within the city and other parts of the Province that the party was moving too far away from the UVF. There was a closed conference some years ago at which it was put across that the link between the UVF and the PUP should be retained,” he said.

Mr Mitchell also said that ‘mainstream’ unionist parties needed to take the wishes of grass roots loyalism on board to a greater degree.

He said that there was a great deal of “discontent” within loyalism that their concerns were not being recognised and that loyalism did not become irrelevant once Stormont began to operate. Giving his backing to political unity within unionism, Leslie Mitchell said that both the PUP and the Ulster Political Research Group had been calling for this several years before the DUP and UUP began to discuss it.

The PUP emerged from the Independent Unionist Group in 1979 and has traditionally drawn support from working class loyalist areas.