"Unionists, prepare for more concessions", warns Allister
15 September 2008
STATEMENT BY TUV LEADER JIM ALLISTER MEP:-
“As high wire politics returns, with the Prime Minister jetting in to apply sticky plaster to hold together the unworkable Executive, Unionists will be mindful that on every such occasion, when their leaders said the line would be held, it has always fallen victim to “fudge and budge”.
Such is what we can expect this week. Though Unionists had been assured the devolution of policing and justice was out of the question for at least a political lifetime, that there would be no shrine at the Maze, that the Irish Language Act was dead and that academic selection was safe, these are the very issues, at the behest of Sinn Fein, which are on the Prime Minister’s negotiating table.
True to its tried any proven tactics Sinn Fein has pocketed what it has got to date – most remarkably a guaranteed place at the heart of the government of a country they don’t recognise – and now demands more. As I warned Peter Robinson when he came to office, such is the system and veto of Sinn Fein, that if he wants to cling to office he will end up, like Trimble, feeding the insatiable demands of IRA/Sinn Fein. His alternative is to tell the Prime Minister that mandatory coalition has failed, cannot work and that he is finished with it. But, of course, he won’t have the courage to do that. Instead, expect the drip drip of concessions to Sinn Fein to continue, maybe sweetened by a little financial handout from Downing Street.”
