It's ten years since the emrgence onto Northern Ireland's (NI) political scene of the Ulster Democratic Party (UDP) and the Progressive Unionist Party (PUP). These two groups, known collectively as "fringe loyalists" gave political representation to the two main unionist paramilitary groups; the UDA and the UVF.
Their emergence onto the scene was welcomed by the media and political elite as a positive development, "a breath of fesh air" into the tired old world of unionism. They were very different from the traditional unionists of the UUP and DUP, or "the furcoat brigade" as the fringe parties derisively labelled them. Traditional unionist representatives tend to be middle-class, conservative and dull.
The fringe loyalists by contrast were working-class, leftist and articulate. Most of their prominent members were former prisoners. They were unafraid of self-criticism, a very rare commodity on either side in NI. But most of all they were moderate, prepared to engage with nationalists and republicans before the established unionist parties were.
You may have noticed my use of the past tense to describe these two parties. Ten years after they first emerged, the fringe loyalist parties are finished. The UDP was wound up after its paramilitary patrons lost faith in the peace process. The PUP survives but it seems to have nothing left to offer. In 1998 the party won two seats in the Assembly. Rather than a good start, this proved to be a high water-mark. It lost one of the two seats in last year's election. It may continue to hold its solitary seat for some time to come but the prospects of growth beyond this are zero.
Inspite of their short lives, these parties played a valuable role in the peace process. At crucial moments like the Canary Wharf bomb in 1996, they were vital in persuading loyalist paramilitaries to stay on ceasefire. The chair of the talks process which led to the Good Friday Agreement (GFA), Senator George Mitchell, was particularly effusive about their positive role in the negotiations.
For me they constituted the first positive development within unionism since the collapse of the Sunningdale agreement in 1974. It is a matter of regret that a combination of loyalist infighting and wider unionist dissatisfaction with the GFA led to their demise.
Now, more than ever, loyalism needs a voice. It needs articulate and moderate leaders with a positive vision for the Protestant working-class. While the finge parties are no more, the whole loyalist community itself constitutes the fringe of society, the increasingly desperate underclass. Loyalist communities have become bywords for hopelessness, where drug addiction, unemployment and paramilitarism feed off each other in a vicious circle.
Particularly in Belfast, loyalist areas are on their knees. In places like Tiger's Bay and the Village, anyone with a bit of ambition or money gets out as soon as possible, leaving their areas to the elderly, the poor and the paramilitaries. While the Shankill and the Falls are twins in poverty, they aren't even related when it comes to energy and optimism. Nationalist West Belfast is packed, full of youthful vigour and community spirit. The Shankill by contrast is desolate and forlorn, drained of people and atomised. Coping with the problems of areas like this is the single greatest challenge facing NI in the next ten years.
The biggest problem of all is the lack of educational achievement in loyalist areas. In general people from NI support, even venearte, the need to get educated. The middle-class on both sides have always understood that their lifestyle depended on a university degree. The Catholic working-class, so long the victims of discrimination, realised that education was a good way out of poverty.
But working-class Protestantism stands apart for historical reasons. In the past there were plentiful jobs for young Protestant school-leavers in NI's industrial sector. Those jobs didn't require a third level education so going to universiy was not seen as that important. What we have now is a psychological time-lag in loyalist areas. The manual jobs are long gone but the idea that you need an education these days, has yet to filter through.
That's why loyalist areas need the fringe parties. By their own life stories men like the PUP's David Ervine or Billy Hutchison show the importance of education. Most of those who were prominent in fringe loyalism have a similair personal narrative - growing up poor, leaving school with little or no qualifications, joining a paramilitary group, going to jail and finally getting educated while incarcerated.
These men, more than anyone else know how important it is for young, working-class Protestants to get an education - for everyone's sake.