''IF youse just hate Taigs then tell me. But don't mess about with wee side issues. Just come out and say it.'' That was the blunt challenge that the veteran Progressive Unionist Hughie Smyth delivered to his opponent as he made an emotional and frank case for voting Yes.

In the small hall off the Shankhill Road, the heart of loyalist west Belfast, Smyth had an easy ride. Most of the audience were progressive Unionists, some of them were ex-UVF prisoners, and their minds were made up.

The next evening in south Belfast, Smyth's colleague David Ervine had a harder time of it. This time there were 20 women who were firmly against the agreement and this blunt speaking cut no ice. Why was he supporting the run down of the RUC? Why did he want Sinn Fein in government? If this deal was so good for unionists, why were the nationalists supporting it?

There has been a huge shift in the class contours of unionism. In 1974, the Protestant working class, led by the paramilitaries of the UDA and the UVF, brought down the power-sharing executive. Over the years since, those UDA and UVF men who thought about politics have accepted the idea that Catholics have to be accommodated and given a share of responsibility for running Northern Ireland.

So long as the IRA was killing people and its own hard men were responding in kind, no-one took paramilitary politics seriously, but since the cease-fires they have grown in stature. And they can present a heartfelt case for the settlement because, unlike many in the Ulster Unionist Party, they actually believe in it.

Men who have served time for terrorist offences have been able to face-down right-wing unionist politicians. As representatives of the communities which have suffered most and as the people who have caused a great deal of that suffering, the ex-prisoners can claim a sort of superiority. As Gusty Spence, the founder of the UVF, put it: ''We are not hard men who have gone soft. We are hard men who have got wise.''

The Protestant paramilitaries have proved their commitment to unionism by killing its enemies. If they say the Union is safe, then it is safe. If they say the agreement offers a chance for their children to grow up in peace, then they should be believed.

The middle-class Protestants, in their safe areas, whose children will escape the ravages of war by going to British universities and not returning, for them life has not been too bad. With house prices well below the national average but salaries paid at national rates, they have had a good war. They are not following the coffins to the cemetery. They are not visiting their sons in the Maze. It is the working class that has borne the brunt of the Troubles and has most to gain by their end.

The working class on both sides is also less offended by the idea of prisoners being released. In one sense everyone knows that the 300 or so men who will get out early is a small fraction of the thousands of prisoners released and that the re-offending rate is minute. But the middle classes, with no close relationship with ex-prisoners, put their ethical objections ahead of such pragmatic considerations.

But not all working class Protestants are persuaded. The gender division has already been mentioned. The other great divide is religious. Those who share Ian Paisley's theology also share his view that Irish nationalism is insatiable and cunning. Whatever the agreement says, this is really just another step in the great Satanic and Romanist ploy to destroy the last stronghold of true Protestantism.

Wednesday's papers carried a large Vote No advert signed not only by Paisley's Free Presbyterian ministers but also by a large number of Pentecostal and gospel hall clergy. Among them was Pastor James McConnell, whose Metropolitan Tabernacle in north Belfast attracts congregations of over 2000. For 20 years, McConnell has presented his church as an apolitical place of respite from worldly entanglements. When such pastors say 'Vote No' then people listen.

The reasons why the Protestant urban working class should favour the settlement are ably articulated by the Progressive Unionists. Protestants long ago lost the economic advantages of loyalty to the old unionist regime: the shipyard and engineering jobs have gone.

They have also lost out to nationalists because they have not built their own sub-cultural institutions as an alternative to the state. But the prosperity argument for peace runs into unionist defeatism. When Ervine reminds his audience of the need for more investment in education and for local democratic control, a fierce woman retorts that ''the Catholics will get it all''.

Many Protestants feel so deflated by the demographic and political changes of the last two decades that even though any elected assembly would have a unionist majority, they cannot believe that it would distribute resources fairly. Worse, some feel that even if equality of treatment was possible, it would be undesirable. As another of the women put it: ''Those murdering bastards deserve nothing''.