Moorehead, shot and killed his father's killer, the UVF's Robert "Basher" Bates (who was also part of the Shankill Butchers gang, led by Lenny Murphy), leading to the Shankill Road UDA "exiling" the young killer to Taughmonagh. UVF members began to prowl McDonald's Taughmonagh stronghold looking for the killer, and a clash between the Donegall Pass UVF and the Sandy Row UDA looked imminent as relations deteriorated both in South Belfast and throughout Northern Ireland as a whole. McDonald did not want a war with the UVF and, according to authors Henry McDonald and Jim Cusack, ultimately negotiated a settlement whereby the killer would be housed on the edge of Taugmonagh and told to keep a low profile. The UDA gave its support to the Belfast Agreement in 1998 although McDonald was one of three Inner Council members – the others being John Gregg and Billy McFarland – who was less convinced about its merits, particularly the prospect of Sinn Féin entering any power-sharing executive. Nonetheless McDonald did not advocate a return to armed struggle and in late 1999 when it became clear that a feud between the UVF and LVF was about to begin he joined fellow brigadiers McFarland, Gregg and Jim Gray in announcing that the UDA would not be getting involved. Such sentiments were not echoed by west Belfast brigadier Johnny Adair however as he saw the LVF as close allies and resented the UVF. Clashes with Johnny Adair McDonald grew further apart from Adair as the year 2000 progressed. Whilst supporting the Orange Order's desire to march through nationalist areas, McDonald was a lot less enthusiastic than Adair about getting involved in the Drumcree conflict. He had grown weary of seeing the mainstream unionist parties seek to ally themselves to loyalist paramilitaries when it was expedient only to sever any links as soon as the relationship no longer suited them. Similarly he was unconvinced by a series of vandalism attacks on loyalist areas in Belfast in late June by three carloads of "republicans", feeling that the missile throwing youths were actually members of Adair's C Company sent to stir up sectarian hatred and win support for Adair's Drumcree strategy. McDonald was one of a number of brigadiers to accept Adair's invitation to a "Loyalist Day of Culture" on the Shankill Road on 19 August 2000 but was shocked to find that C Company had used the