Allister comments on DUP meeting with UVF and UDA
05 September 2008
How ironic that on a day in which the TUV launched a policy document calling for Unionists to unitedly oppose any role for Sinn Fein/IRA in the appointment of our top judges and independent members to the Policing Board – something which the DUP failed to do in the Special Assembly Committee looking at the devolution of policing and justice – Peter Robinson should announce that he and other senior party figures have met with loyalist paramilitaries.
Self-styled loyalist terrorists – like their Republican counterparts – should be hunted down by the forces of the state, not courted by government ministers. Only a short time ago the DUP rounded on the Ulster Unionists for forming an alliance with the PUP boldly declaring that they would “have nothing to do with terrorism".
Meeting the leadership of illegal organizations is not the path which responsible unionism should tread. Moreover, politically this totally undermines the line which need to be held in relation to Sinn Fein on policing and justice.
