He said: "The latest belligerent bluster from the UDA cannot go unchallenged. We have a First Minister and Deputy First Minister who should be providing leadership and we have a British minister in charge of our security.
"Yet an armed paramilitary group can state without repercussions that it is getting ready to do battle, that it is training in the skills to defend unionist communities. That is a scandal in any democracy.
"The leaders of unionism and in particular Peter Robinson, must stand up to paramilitaries as the SDLP did down through the years. All-round condemnations are not enough. We now have a functioning democracy and the DUP must challenge the warlords and the brigadiers on the ground, in the communities they are holding to ransom. People are screaming from the rooftops to be free of paramilitary tyranny of all types.
"Whatever game the Direct Rule ministers have been playing in championing the 'good' UDA against the 'bad' UDA, it is time to call it off.Enticement has failed - the loyalists have decommissioned precisely nothing and there is no indication that they ever will.
"The SDLP has repeatedly told the British that we cannot accept our people being held hostage by thugs or live with war-mongering threats from murderers.
"The decommissioning legislation which provides immunity from prosecution for certain arms offences was a useful mechanism which has outlived its usefulness.
"Indeed the term 'paramilitary' must be removed from the political dictionary and those masquerading as such rounded up and brought before the courts.
"We don't have to wait for the full devolution of policing and justice. It is time for First Minister Peter Robinson to tell the unionist paramilitaries that their war is over, that the only people they will be defending is themselves in court."