Ideology
Vanguard is usually considered to have been a right-wing party. In its earliest days it adopted the style associated with falangist parties with an honour guard, a common salute and a habit of wearing sashes. This led to it being characterised as Mosleyite or even neo-Nazi with the Stormont unionist MP William McConnell claiming that Vanguard rallies involved "a certain Hitlerian-type figure ... walking up and down the lines, inspecting his so-called storm-troopers." Craig however denied that the party was either neo-nazi or paramilitary.
Ulster Vanguard was intended to provide an umbrella organisation for various loyalist groups. It had close links with, and strong support from loyalist paramilitary groups. Vanguard had its own paramilitary grouping called the Vanguard Service Corps (USC), whose main function seemed to be to provide escorts for Vanguard speakers attending rallies.
Read more about this topic: Vanguard Unionist Progressive Party
Famous quotes containing the word ideology:
“The ideology of this America wants to establish reassurance through Imitation. But profit defeats ideology, because the consumers want to be thrilled not only by the guarantee of the Good but also by the shudder of the Bad.”
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“We must conclude that it is not only a particular political ideology that has failed, but the idea that men and women could ever define themselves in terms that exclude their spiritual needs.”
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“Every sign is subject to the criteria of ideological evaluation.... The domain of ideology coincides with the domain of signs. They equate with one another. Wherever a sign is present, ideology is present, too. Everything ideological possesses semiotic value.”
—V.N. (Valintin Nikolaevic)