My Life in Loyalism

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After his release in 1990, he was involved with Gusty Spence and others, in the peace process which led to the announcement, in October 1994, by the Combined Loyalist Military Command (CLMC) , of a ceasefire.

We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. In the book, he describes how his mother came to visit him in prison, and asked him about a Catholic man who had been killed by the Ulster Defence Association (UDA).Mr Hutchinson said one of the legacies of the agreement was that it had succeeded in bringing about an end to most violence. 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 UDA encouraged the LVF to claim the attack but when the claim was made Hutchinson refuted it and placed the blame on the UDA. As he puts it; “ Even though the evidence was pointing toward my involvement in the shooting, I tried to maintain an air of defiance,” and disingenuously added “Loughran and Morgan had been identified as active republicans. The institutions established by the Good Friday Agreement are not working and need to be reviewed, a loyalist leader has said. We’ve all seen the Bios of the better known players on the NI stage, now this book tells the story (as did Henry Sinnerton’s Bio of David Ervine) of one of the lesser known politicians who undoubtedly made as much of an impact as the ‘names’.In the early 1970s Billy was involved in the formation of the Young Citizen Volunteers and was later influential in brokering the loyalist ceasefire of 1994. The political system seems to be failing at the minute and my view is that the political system is the most important thing we have. In 2013, Hutchinson announced his intention to run in both forthcoming council and parliamentary elections. Both men were arrested soon afterwards and were both charged with murder to which they pleaded guilty, receiving life sentences.

Both men were influenced by the example of Sinn Féin, who had demonstrated that an articulate media presence could ensure that paramilitary groups' demands might be heard.In this role Hutchinson took a leading role in the December 2012 campaign of protests and road blockades by loyalists following Belfast City Council passing a resolution to end the practice of flying the Union flag from Belfast City Hall all year round and instead to limit its use to certain designated days.

However, it does appear to me that there is a clear reluctance on the part of those proponents of accepting a deal to open it up to scrutiny. Hutchinson was born in Stoke-upon-Trent and played for Fenton Red Star before joining Stoke in 1888. He left school at fifteen with no qualifications and was imprisoned in Long Kesh (the Compounds at Maze and Long Kesh Prison) between 1974-1990.Spence resigned from the UVF in 1978 and, after a period of collective leadership by the "officers commanding" of each prison compound, Hutchinson succeeded him as leader of the UVF in Long Kesh. Progressive Unionist Party president Billy Hutchinson has said any deal on the Windsor Framework that makes only “cosmetic changes” to the Brexit protocol arrangements would be unsellable to the loyalist electorate.