My Life in Loyalism

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The book also offers an intimate documentary of life in Northern Ireland from the loyalist point of view behind the headlines and media bias. In October 2011 Billy Hutchinson was elected leader of the Progressive Unionist Party at the party's annual conference in succession to Brian Ervine.

He made just one appearance for Stoke in the Football League which came in a 2–1 defeat away at Derby County in January 1889. 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. Billy is self consciously a socialist in his political opinions, although this seems to signify as much a badge of identity as it does a precise political programme. Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness (left), Progressive Unionist Party’s Billy Hutchinson, and Ulster Unionist Ken Maginnis (right) in 1998.I do not think Sinn Fein, SDLP and Alliance have done so; rather they have inflamed tensions with their blatant disregard for the foundational principles upon which peace and our political process rests.

Anything less would not only be a disservice to their constituents, but [also] a grave misstep in the history of our beloved Northern Ireland and its place within the Union. Hutchinson, as the leader of the UVF prisoners in Long Kesh, through contacts with Pat Thompson, his republican counterpart, helped get Catholic and Protestant clergy involved in exploring political ways forward. This was despite the fact that Hutchinson had been a noted sceptic on the issue and had criticised David Trimble because of it, arguing that his insistence on republican decommissioning was in fact damaging the peace process.Both men were arrested soon afterwards and were both charged with murder to which they pleaded guilty, receiving life sentences.