Does unionism’s right-wing have a political future in a supposedly increasingly secular Northern Ireland? That’s the vital question posed by political commentator, John Coulter. John can be followed on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter.

As Orange Order spokesmen deliver their speeches and sermons across the Twelfth demonstration venues, and the Royal Black Institution bosses deliver theirs at the traditional Sham Fight at Scarva, one question must now be uppermost in the minds of speech makers and listeners alike: does the once mighty conservative right-wing of unionism have a future in Irish politics?

Indeed, does right-wing unionism still have a role amid the seemingly mad dash to occupy the so-called ‘centre ground’ on the Northern Ireland political spectrum?

Ever since the collapse of the Stormont power-sharing Executive in January 2017, words and phrases such as ‘moderate’, ‘liberal’, ‘radical moderate’ and ‘soft unionist’ have entered – and seemingly dominated – the pro-Union political vocabulary.

Unionism, as an ideology, now seems more interested in trying to ‘persuade’ moderate nationalists and Catholics that their future lies with the Union than trying to encourage the vast legions of ‘stay at home unionists’ to get active again.

The massive boost for the Alliance Party in the local council elections and party leader Naomi Long snatching the 40-year-old Ulster Unionist European seat has sent shivers through unionism, with – like Private Frazer from the TV sitcom Dad’s Army – liberal unionists screaming ‘we’re doomed’ unless all pro-Union parties jump ship to the centre ground.

Mention the phrase ‘right-wing’ in some unionist circles and you could be branded as living in the past, needing to move on, not accepting the inevitable, and not recognising how times have changed.

But, at some stage, with all these various shades of pro-Union thinking trying to clamber aboard the good ship Centre Ground, that ship will also inevitably capsize, sparking a right-wing backlash.

Drawing on history, unionism needs to accept that there is a right-wing market still in Northern Ireland. It just needs to find a way of mobilising and persuading that silent majority to re-engage with the ballot box.

Unfortunately, think of right-wing unionism this Twelfth and the false perception will be created that you are thinking either about the Progressive Unionist Party, or the Traditional Unionist Voice.

While the PUP would see itself as a working class loyalist socialist movement, its past links to the outlawed terror groups, the Ulster Volunteer Force and Red Hand Commando, have given the false impression this fringe unionist movement with only a handful of councillors is a hardline right-wing movement.

As for the TUV, with one MLA and a handful of councillors mostly dotted across County Antrim, the party is viewed as the Jim Allister Fan Club. Where would the TUV be if it didn’t have Mr Allister as leader?

Perhaps the problem which right-wing unionism has to address if it is still to be a recognised force within the pro-Union community is not one of ideology, but one of organisation and structure.

In the past, right-wing unionism has tended to have been organised from the top down, namely from leadership to grassroots. Realistically, any new right-wing unionist surge must first become a grassroots pressure group and organise from the bottom up.

How did the original Paisleyite movement, known as the Protestant Unionist Party, before it became the DUP in 1971, gain such influence in parts of County Antrim?

In the late 1960s, right-wing elements within the establishment Unionist Party became concerned about the liberalising ethos of Stormont Prime Ministers Terence O’Neill and James Chichester-Clark. Rather than be seen as rabble rousers themselves, these middle class right-wing unionists secretly urged working class loyalist Paisley senior supporters to disrupt Unionist Party meetings, especially in North Antrim.

The Unionist Party in the 1960s was almost a closed shop to working class Protestants. To gain entrance to Unionist Party meetings required paper invitations. One original Paisley supporter from that era informed me that he would be given such an invitation from a middle class Unionist so that he could attend a meeting to heckle Chichester-Clark.

The tactic was to cause so much mayhem that the meetings would be cancelled, thereby driving middle class and aristocratic Unionists away from such meetings in the Orange Halls. Such Unionists simply did not want to endure the hassle from the working class loyalists.

My late father, a Presbyterian minister and later a UUP MLA, told me how on one occasion how he was asked by the then RUC to escort one of his Presbyterian Church elders from a local Orange Hall. The elder was also the local Unionist Party branch chairman and an avowed liberal, but was besieged inside the Orange Hall by Paisley supporters outside. The RUC could not guarantee the safety of the liberal Unionist and it required my father to physically escort the elder from the hall so that he would not be attacked by the loyalists.

In the 1970s, the Vanguard movement’s success was that it was a pressure group to mobilise the unionist right-wing. Its eventual downfall was that it converted itself into yet another political party. Even within the ruling Ulster Unionist Party in the 70s and 80s, the right-wing pressure group known as the Ulster Monday Club could boast MPs and councillors among its ranks, including then party boss Jim Molyneaux.

In the late 80s, the leaderships of the DUP and UUP could not take advantage of the massive right-wing mobilisation of unionist grassroots against the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement. Right-wing political unionism, in conjunction with the Loyal Orders, energised thousands of grassroots Unionists, spawning organisations such as the Ulster Clubs Movement, Ulster Resistance, and the Ulster Movement for Self-Determination.

But instead of exploiting the weakness of the Anglo-Irish Agreement, such as demanding a say in the running of the Irish Republic, just as the Agreement provided for Dublin to have a say in the running of Northern Ireland via the Maryfield Secretariat near Belfast, the unionist leadership was content to play the numbers game with massive rallies at Belfast City Hall and a string of street protests under the banners of ‘Ulster Says No’ and ‘Ulster Still Says No’.

That street mobilisation by the right-wing may have worked in 1974 to bring down the Sunningdale Executive, but London and Dublin were ready for the predicted street tactic of Unionism come 1985.

So, given these past mistakes, how should modern-day right-wing unionism be organised? The ‘New Right’ in unionism should build on three existing power blocs: the Loyal Orders (Orange, Black, Apprentice Boys, Independent Orange), the marching band scene, and the Christian Churches.

It should be a grassroots movement rather than be directed by the party executives of the DUP and UUP. Its central aim should be to get as many of the unionist community who have not registered to vote, to get them to do so – and actually vote. A network of Orange and church halls already exists where the movement can hold discussion meetings on policy.

Once this pressure group has been established, the unionist leaderships will listen to the voice of the people. If liberalism and secularism have gained such footholds within the pro-Union parties, then the Loyal Orders must be prepared to put up candidates in elections. And, given the strong showing of the Loyal Orders and Protestant Churches in the Southern Irish border counties, the New Right should also be prepared to put up candidates in elections in the Republic in a post-Brexit Ireland.

That would certainly be quite a break from the past, and it’s the type of imaginative thinking that could help conservative elements in unionism to regain momentum.