ABSTRACT
The development of the PUP and UDP=UPRG represented a crucial attempt by many loyalists to refine the parameters within which they interpreted their political world.44 The coming to public prominence of the PUP and UDP marked the revelation of a clear political dynamic representing distinctive ideological positions firmly rooted within working-class community experiences as these parties sought to stretch the distance between themselves and the traditional political representatives of unionism. This was reflected in claims to directly challenge the roles played by ‘‘out-dated’’ unionist politicians, and it was claimed that the ‘‘Protestant people have woken up to [their] phoney politics.’’45 In the more recent post-Agreement context, the interpretation of an increasingly marginalised Protestant working class has formed the bedrock from which to reconstruct and reinterpret loyalism’s political past and to reposition both itself and its relationship with republicanism.
