A month ago loyalist paramilitaries were warning they would "wreck the place" if they were unhappy with the outcome of negotiations on Brexit's Northern Ireland Protocol.
The streets would be "in flames" if a new deal between the UK and European Union did not scrap the Irish Sea border, senior UVF figures told the Sunday Life.
The Windsor Framework has since been unveiled and formally adopted, but it seems this is far from the major concern currently aggravating loyalist gangs.
Read more: Brendan Hughes: DUP isolation on Windsor Framework shows MPs want to move on from the Brexit wars
Instead, attacks and disorder over the past week or so in Co Down show once again the key priorities for many of these criminals are control, territory and drugs.
They are concerned about trade barriers but instead of red and green lanes, they are focused on ensuring their lucrative white lanes of illicit narcotics keep flowing into Northern Ireland.
It is not an Irish Sea border prompting masked men to menacingly fill the streets, but a turf war to maintain a hard border between neighbourhood patches for peddling their poison.
And in this feud between rival drugs gangs linked to the UDA, it is their own communities they claim to protect which are suffering.
Almost a dozen attacks have now been carried out in Bangor, Newtownards, Donaghadee and Ballywalter. A pipe bomb was thrown at one property where four children were among the occupants.
Police have said the gangs involved in the feud are "expelled" members of the south-east Antrim UDA and west Belfast UDA - but this is a wafer thin distinction.
The Loyalist Communities Council at first was silent, but after several days it released a statement rejecting the disorder.
It condemned "the illegal peddling of drugs in our communities" and said it "rejects the use of loyalist 'flags of convenience' as a cover for criminal activity”.
The body, which involves representatives of the UVF, factions of the UDA and Red Hand Commando, said the disorder was the "work of competing drug cartels" and dismissed them as "not loyalists".
To accept condemnation of criminality from a body which represents proscribed paramilitary organisations which should have disbanded 25 years ago requires some serious mental gymnastics.
However, the immediate concern is that it suggests a lack of options for leadership within loyalism to take control over this feud - making it more difficult to bring to an end.
The recklessness of this dispute is already putting innocent lives at risk. There is a very real danger attacks could further escalate to the point where people are injured or killed.
Nine-year-old Olivia Pratt-Korbel was fatally shot in her home in Liverpool last August when a drug dealer chased another drug dealer into the property.
Her horrific murder, for which 34-year-old Thomas Cashman was convicted on Thursday, should act as a chilling warning of the potential consequences of such feuds.
With bodies such as the Paramilitary Crime Task Force, authorities are making huge efforts to clamp down on criminal gangs and Northern Ireland's illegal drugs trade.
However, at a time when the terrorism threat level has been raised following an increase in dissident republican attacks, police resources are being severely stretched.
In the 2020 New Decade, New Approach agreement, Stormont parties pledged to increase police officer numbers to 7,500.
But the PSNI earlier this year said an £80million shortfall meant its number of police was being reduced in March to 6,700 - the fewest it has ever had.
An extra £3million promised in the UK budget to extend a programme on tackling paramilitarism is piecemeal given the funding gap for policing.
The DUP has called for the UK government to help fund additional police officers given the increased security threat.
With the party still boycotting Stormont over the Protocol, extra funding could become a bargaining chip in the government's attempts to coax the DUP back into power-sharing.
READ NEXT:
Brendan Hughes: NI secretary offers DUP new escape route on Windsor Framework
Brendan Hughes: Stormont talent pool drained as NI Protocol stalemate drags on
NI Protocol deal analysis: Focus shifts to DUP as Windsor Framework is agreed
Brendan Hughes: Row over NI centenary stone raises questions for Stormont parties
For all the latest news, visit the Belfast Live homepage here and sign up to our daily newsletter here.
