1/ I had enough of Twitter and deactivated my account. But the recent upsurge in violence in Northern Ireland and the subsequent media coverage and interpretation of it, needs some examination. Let's start with the causes of what's happening...

2/ The refusal of politicians to heed calls to remove the Northern Ireland Protocol.

The nationalist parties including Alliance have mocked taunted unionists and Brexit supporters, refusing to even look at any alternative to the arrangements if it means the Protocol is replaced.

3/ The decision not to prosecute Sinn Fein leaders who deliberately broke Covid regulations they helped impose on everyone else.

It is disgraceful that the PSNI actually played a part in facilitating a large scale breach of the regulations, which gave legal cover to Sinn Fein.

4/ The wrecking of the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement.

It takes a special kind of deceit to claim to be protecting the Belfast Agreement, while demanding actions that break it, and even necessitate enabling legislation being stealth edited to make the breach fit the treaty.

5/ Two-tier policing by the PSNI.

Criminals, drug dealers and paramilitaries on all sides must all be brought to justice. Yet the PSNI's actions show relentless targeting of loyalist areas and even attempts to criminalise non law breakers. Justice should be blind, not political.

6/ Back to the politicians.

These people think they are leaders. They aren't. Their trite soundbites, dusted off every time there is an incident, are meaningless and ignored. The same old lines get trotted out because they love the sound of their own voices. They offer nothing.

7/ In fact it is the politicians who are the root cause of the violence we are seeing. Nationalist parties see the NI Protocol as vehicle to split the UK and advance their push for a united Ireland. Their ulterior motives and unification agenda trumps all.

8/ It is Irish and nationalist politicians who have routinely talked up violence if there were checks of goods crossing the Irish border. They used inflammatory language regularly while demanding their opponents "tone down" criticism of the Protocol.

9/ The same people used their lobby in the US to claim checks of goods crossing the Irish border would breach the Belfast Agreement. That was a demonstrable lie, which the media allowed to be repeated unchallenged. Their Protocol breaks the Agreement and they know it.

10/ Such routine dishonesty from nationalist politicians, routine application of double standards, routine interference from Dublin, routine complicity from the media and spineless ignorance from London has brought us to where we are today.

11/ If a GB police force had collaborated with a political group, to deliberately plan an unlawful breach of Covid regulations to facilitate the public funeral of a convicted terrorist, and tried to conceal its involvement, and helped spike prosecutions, there would be outrage.

12/ This is what has happened in NI. Partisan, political policing has merely added fuel to a fire that was lit by the deceitful wrecking of the Good Friday Agreement, and the damage caused by the Protocol as goods stop being shipped here and costs are driven up.

13/ The media attempting to blame this on "criminal elements" in the loyalist community is an effort to distract people from the behaviour and actions of nationalist politicians and the PSNI and downplay the double standards being shown.

14/ Violence is wrong. But what exactly do we expect to happen when politicians attack the Union with glee, destroy the Belfast Agreement with a smirk, and can break the law with the assistance of the police?

15/ When you remove the ability of people to stop a damaging and undemocratic Protocol being imposed, when you laugh at them as a peace treaty is trampled on, when you see the law only being applied selectively, you lose the trust and confidence of those on the receiving end.

16/ And when you shut off the political mechanisms and ride roughshod over political processes, and even set aside the law to suit one part of the community, you leave people no other option than to protest - and that risks turning into violence.

17/ It's worth adding that what we have seen from loyalists this week is them following the example of nationalists. Loyalists have seen nationalist violence and threats rewarded time and again over the years. No wonder many loyalists think this is how they can get their way.

18/ Some more context is provided by the Loyalist Communities Council, who have denied paramilitaries are behind the violence, and has called for peaceful protests. The PSNI assessment is that the LCC denial is accurate. Extracts from the Irish Times...

19/ Things are not helped by politicians with a stratospheric capacity for weapons-grade lies and deceit such as this. The EU now trying to take credit for a peace agreement it had no involvement in and has since trampled over.

20/ Not everyone will agree with my take on this. Views and opinions are subjective. But what I've outlined above is the unvarnished, raw perspective of many unionists who are fed up of being treated with contempt by nationalists, police, media and various institutions.