The PSNI Chief Constable’s recent remarks on Loyalist intimidation in North Belfast are nothing short of a disgrace. When asked about the UDA’s role in forcing Catholic families and migrant workers from their homes in previous weeks, he said that the PSNI “doesn’t care if you are part of the UDA or whatever acronym you want to use – pack it up.”
We say: This is not leadership – it’s a pass-off. Unionist death squads have spent decades driving people from their homes with threats, beatings, and petrol bombs. Instead of calling them what they are, the Crown Forces flippantly brush it aside like it’s nothing. That is the reality of British policing in Ireland: excuses for Loyalists, crackdowns for Republicans.
If the IRA had driven Protestant families out of a community, the British state would lose its mind. Stormont and Westminster would be in crisis meetings, the PSNI would be swarming the area, and the media would howl about a “return to war.” But when loyalist terror gangs burn out families from a Catholic background or force migrant tenants to pack up and leave, the response is silence, excuses, and hollow lines about “individual members”.That double standard has always been there – Catholics and migrants are left at the mercy of gangs, while Stormonts heavily armed security wing stands back.
Housing in North Belfast has always been used as a weapon. Any new Catholic or migrant neighbours are treated as a threat, and the footsoldiers of Unionism are free to enforce segregation on the ground.
The PSNI’s role is clear: they don’t confront the gangs – they manage them, give cover to them, and let intimidation carry on. That is not ‘policing’, it’s collaboration.
We say it clearly: Unionist death squads like the UDA and others are not acronyms, not “groups,” not “individuals” – they are organised gangs of sectarian criminals historically utilised by the state; and the PSNI are not neutral – they are part of the same system that has always turned a blind eye to attacks on Catholics and migrants.
The truth is simple – as long as the British state and their Loyalist gangs operate here, working-class communities will never know safety. There can be no tolerance for sectarian or racist intimidation, and no tolerance for Crown Force indifference. Anything less is a green light for more violence.
ENDS
