Glenn Barr - Return To UDA Activity

Return To UDA Activity

Barr had been invited back into the UDA after the failure of the second strike, with a feeling within the movement that he had proven right right with his opposition to the failed initiative and so would be an asset politically to the movement. Following the collapse of Vanguard Barr returned to a leading position in the UDA, becoming involved in the New Ulster Political Research Group (NUPRG). Whilst there, Barr took a leading role in the production of Beyond the Religious Divide, a document which sought to set out a framework for a move towards eventual independence for Northern Ireland. Barr became increasingly disillusioned with what he saw as the callousness of unionist politicians towards their electorate, and the blind loyalty of that electorate. He commented: "They could have sent a donkey with a Union Jack tied to its tail up the Shankill Road, and we would have voted for it." Barr was also chosen to break the self-imposed media blackout adopted by the NUPRG in late 1978 when he gave an interview to the Irish political magazine Magill during which he put forward the case for independence.

The UDA, however, failed to recommend the proposals to its members and, as a result, Barr drifted away from the NUPRG, leaving politics altogether in 1981 to return to community work in Derry. Barr also had a somewhat fractious relationship with the NUPRG's chairman John McMichael and following Barr's retirement McMichael changed the group, abandoning Barr's pet project of establishing a cross-community Northern Ireland Negotiated Independence Association, and instead set up the Ulster Loyalist Democratic Party.