To understand the present troubles in Belfast, we need to go back to the dying days of the old ‘Orange State’

The disturbances prompted by Belfast City Council’s decision to restrict their flying of the Union flag can seem bewildering to outsiders. However Eric Kaufmann argues that they make sense within the broader historical context, as the dismantling of a centuries old tradition has come to symbolise Protestant fears of a loss of power in what is rapidly becoming a Catholic majority country.