There are periods in history when political crisis threatens to unravel society.� Such times are obviously times of grave danger.� But they are also times of transition, of invitation and of opportunity. I believe that we are at such a moment in the history of modern Ulster and, while we must ever be alert to the dangers of the time, we must also be open to the possibilities of new and exciting opportunities.

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The political debate within loyalism during the past five years, together with the new political climate generated by the peace process, has helped to liberate many loyalists from the belief that to be a unionist you had to reject your natural inclination to be active within the labour and trade union movement. Consequently many of us have endeavoured to embrace the principles of democratic socialism rather than the principles of either conservatism or liberalism on the one hand, or theocratic fundamentalism on the other hand.

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There are many representative forms of democratic socialism, just as there are many representative forms of conservatism and liberalism, and some of these have had positive effects on humanity while others have had negative effects. The term socialism has been discredited by its connection with many extravagant and revolutionary schemes but it is a term that needs to be claimed for nobler uses.� And it is a term that a growing number of men and women from loyalist communities wish to rescue and use for nobler purposes.

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It must be said that socialism has no necessary affinity with any forms of violence, or subversion, or with the confiscation of property. Nor does it have any necessary affinity with class selfishness or with any particular religious denomination or cultural identity.

The democratic socialism expressed by Clause 4 of the Old Labour Party Constitution and retained by the Progressive Unionist Party in its constitution is an honourable political philosophy that seeks to develop a just, equitable and pluralist society for all of our citizens within the United Kingdom. Sadly, New Labour has cast out Clause Four in its mad rush to gain power at the expense of principle. It has, in effect, become a liberal democratic party.

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Democratic Socialism is the political philosophy that gave us the Welfare State and its many social benefits - benefits that were being eroded under the Tories and that continue to be eroded under New Labour. It was the political catalyst that has provided the British working classes with a vibrant democratic labour and trade union movement through which they could harness their skills, their expertise and their energy.

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This labour and trade union movement has underpinned the campaign to secure the social, economic and political emancipation of the people of the United Kingdom and has sought to replace cut-throat competitiveness and selfish individualism with co-operative endeavour, mutuality and interdependence. It suffered greatly during the Thatcher Years when repressive anti-union legislation was introduced to weaken resistance to the ideologies of the New Right, and when the apparatus of the state was used to try and crush the National Union of Mineworkers. New Labour does not appear to have the will or the desire to reverse the anti-union trends of the Thatcher Years.

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The late R.H. Tawney adequately defined what democratic socialism means when he wrote "A socialist society is a community of responsible men and women, working without fear, in comradeship, for common ends, all of whom can grow to their full stature, developing to the utmost the varying capacities with which nature has endowed them and, since virtue should not be too austere, have their fling when they like it".

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I cannot imagine a better way of expressing what the new breed of working class loyalists are about. We desire a community comprised of responsible men and women who are working without fear in a bond of comradeship to achieve common ends. Men and women who are working to develop their full stature and realise their full potential as human beings, and who are working to ensure that, after their labour, they have time, scope and opportunity for pleasure and social enjoyment

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There is nothing in democratic socialism that is incompatible with either our desire to maintain our British citizenship or to practice our Protestant faith.� The Protestant Reformation was not just a spiritual movement that sought the reform of a religious institution, it was also a social, cultural and political movement which laid the foundations first of all for Liberal Democracy and then for Social Democracy.� The Reformation was a liberating movement that paved the way for the radicalism of the Scottish Enlightenment and the philosophy of Presbyterian scholars such as Francis Hutcheson, William Leechman and William Steele-Dickson.�

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The later development of the principles of social democracy was a natural outcome of the evolutionary process of the liberating radicalism that was spawned by the Reformation and the Scottish Enlightenment. It is no accident that the same Scotland that blazed the trail of the Reformation in these islands and that later gave us the liberal democracy of Hutcheson, Leechman and Mc Cosh, has in this century become the citadel of democratic socialism and the vanguard of resistance to the Tories.

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By embracing the principles of democratic socialism we are being more faithful to the spirit and the intent of the Protestant Reformation than are those cowering, fearful and unimaginative fundamentalists who remain locked in the dungeons of their own ignorance and bigotry.�

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On a more practical side, by embracing the principles of democratic socialism we are embracing a political philosophy that will provide ordinary people living in marginalised communities with the tools for social change and community empowerment - tools that will help to enrich and enhance the quality of life for all of our people.