In the ongoing debate about the future of the UDA's involvement in the peace process the one question that remains unexplored is the attitude of the British government's intelligence agencies to the UDA.
The answer to that question is crucial because the UDA and indeed the UVF are not, nor have they ever been, masters of their own destinies.
The UDA was set up by the British government in the early seventies. It served their military needs in their war against the nationalist people.
The UDA stepped straight out of the pages of the British army's counter-insurgency manual written by one of their key military strategists, Brigadier Frank Kitson.
In practically every colonial war the British government has fought since the end of the Second World War – and there have been many – the British created forces such as the UDA to help them achieve their military objectives.
In books Gangs and Counter Gangs and Bunch of Five, written in the sixties and seventies, Kitson explained the role and importance of paramilitary organisations similar to the UDA.
These paramilitary organisations were an essential, indispensable part of the British government's war machine.
Attempts by loyalists, UDA and UVF, to establish political parties following their ceasefire declarations in 1994, were primarily destroyed by the intelligence services and the RUC's Special Branch.
The UDA and the UVF had competent politicians in Davy Adams, Gary Mc Michael, Billy Hutchinson and the late David Ervine. These individuals were committed to giving working-class loyalists a political voice at a very important stage in the fledgling peace process.
There was an unprecedented public and sympathetic media focus on these individuals; a focus that should have helped their plans to build political parties.
But their independent stance and their intentions to follow an independent path were at odds with the needs of the intelligence services. Loyalists thinking and behaving in their own interests was the last thing the various intelligence services wanted to see happening.
It threatened the ability of the intelligence services to use the UDA and the UVF to serve their interests which usually meant violent activities aimed at undermining or putting in jeopardy the peace process.
The UDA and UVF's plans to represent the loyalist working classes were destroyed by the behavior of Johnny Adair, John White, Billy Wright, Jim Gray and the Shoukri brothers among others.
White and Adair fled the country and White was later exposed as an agent. All of them at different times and over a protracted period put pressure on the credibility of the claim by loyalist politicians that they supported the peace process.
Their activities included the sectarian killings of Catholics, feuds – killing other loyalists and Protestants – racketeering and swamping loyalist areas with drugs.
Against this background it was virtually impossible for the UDA and UVF to win significant electoral support from working-class Protestants.
This failure and the manipulation by the intelligence services made it easy for the drug barons and those opposed to the peace process to establish a strong base inside the UDA – a base that now has the potential to challenge the current leadership of the UDA over its future direction.
The options facing those with influence over the UDA are simple: Help and support those in the leadership who are for the peace process and isolate those who are not or run the risk that this large organisation could disintegrates further into an armed criminal gang, which could threaten political progress here.
The problem is both a political and a policing one, although the solution is more political than policing.
Chief Constable Hugh Orde must ensure the UDA is free from manipulation by the intelligence services.
The PSNI can then confidently and effectively focus on the drug barons and peddlers.
Unionist politicians should publicly commit themselves to working with pro-peace loyalists and assist working-class communities to rid their areas of those preying on them.
Support of this nature will give the UDA leadership the space it needs to develop its political project unhindered.
The UDA and UVF leaderships made and are making an invaluable contribution to the peace process.
The carrot not the stick is needed to strengthen the pro-peace process UDA leadership.
