In some parts of Belfast local people fly the flag of the British Parachute Regiment, the colonel-in chief of which is Charles Windsor. Given that this state gang murdered eleven civilians in the city in 1971 and killed another fourteen in Derry a few months later, this might seem odd. When I returned to the street where I grew up on the opposite of a sentimental journey it was flying outside a few homes.

For those flying it, the flag indicates that they support the right of the British state to kill as many six county nationalists as they choose to with impunity. More than that, they want them to do it.

Given the passage of time and the lengths the regiment and British state went to destroy evidence, it seemed a long shot that the man known as Soldier F would be found guilty of murder. (His name is in the public domain outside the British state.)

What was surprising was how several of the leaders of unionism reacted to the verdict. It was the political equivalent of cracking open a bottle of champagne and dancing on the graves of the people the Parachute Regiment murdered.

DUP leader Gavin Robinson and MP Carla Lockhart could have put out a statement saying “while it’s a bit rough on the families, we are glad that this old man accused of murder and his mates are off the hook”. Instead, they delighted in displaying the emblem of the murder gang on their social media accounts, conveying the message to their hard right supporters that they don’t have a problem with state murder of the “wrong sort” of civilians when circumstances require. Anyone who has been watching them cheering on the IDF committing genocide will know that their outrage at violence is very conditional.

What we can broadly call the “Kneecap generation” in the six counties are lucky not to have lived through the killing and they certainly have no appetite for it to resume. However, Robinson and Lockhart have taught them a valuable lesson. It will never be said out loud, but the DUP and the even more far right Traditional Unionist Voice will unconditionally and uncritically support the British state when it decides to beat them or shoot them off the streets of the sectarian statelet.

This is a valuable lesson which will have long term political consequences for unionism as much as for the younger generations of nationalists.