By James Martin McCarthy
Loyalist activist Jamie Bryson has said that some of his biggest supporters in getting to the bar have been Catholics and people from the nationalist community, as he hit out at “middle-class protestants” whom he accused of “forgetting where they came from”. Mr Bryson was speaking on the BBC’s Nolan Show after he was acquitted of charges of misconduct in public office yesterday alongside former Sinn F茅in MLA Daithi McKay and Thomas O’Hara. Speaking on the programme, Mr Bryson revealed that he has achieved a high enough grade to graduate with first class honours in his law degree from the Open University and that he will go on to study a masters in Law at Ulster University from September. He also said that he intends to sit the bar exam this December, having been prevented from doing so last year due to the case. Jamie Bryson said that he hopes that by becoming a barrister, he will open doors for many young loyalists to do the same and to enter the legal profession. “I think young nationalists have done very well through the law, and I think there’s a constant stream of young people, first generations of nationalist communities [entering the profession], but let me say this, I want to make this point, and again, I’m not going to get into personalities absolutely not, but, there’s clearly quite a campaign to try and make sure that I don’t get to the bar, and there’s people who think, you know, an upstart like me shouldn’t be there,” he said. “I’m not going to get into individuals, but what I’ll say is this: do you know the people who are most opposed to that, middle-class Protestants , people from my own community. “You know the people who are most supportive of me getting to the bar, Catholics or people from the nationalist community.” Mr Bryson recalled a story about a number of barristers from a protestant background who were discussing his future career prospects and how it was Joe Brolly , a person whom he venomously disagrees with, who stuck up for him. “There was a conversation in and around the courts where a number of barristers from a Protestant background, a middle-class Protestant background, essentially said, we’ll have to make sure that nobody will take him as a pupil to stop him getting in. “Do you know who the one person who stood up and said, if you are going to get on like that, I’ll take him, Joe Brolly . Joe Brolly, the person most politically opposed to me in the world, I don’t agree with Joe Brolly, on what day it is, but he said, that’s not right.” Mr Bryson took a swipe at what he termed “snobbishness” in unionism and said that people from “middle-class Protestant communities” are most hostile to him. “We’ve all made mistakes, but there’s a snobbishness in unionism and middle class Protestantism , you know, the latte drinkers who think they’re better than everybody else. “In the nationalist community, they don’t have that. There’s a real upward social mobility, and when people enter the professional class, and working-class nationalist backgrounds, they don’t think they’re better than everybody else. They remember where they came from. “In unionist communities, once people get into the professional class, in general, not always, but in general, they forget where they came from. They become almost embarrassed of the underclass they came from, and they don’t want to know them.” Jamie Bryson added that he has “total respect” for people from a nationalist background who have worked hard to enter the legal profession and finished by saying that the Lady Chief Justice, Siobhan Keegan, is “doing a very good job” of encouraging everybody in the community to pursue a career in law. For all the latest news, visit the Belfast Live homepage here and sign up to our politics newsletter here.