Belfast agreement devolution can never work - Allister

18 September 2008

Statement by TUV Leader Jim Allister MEP:

“A government whose Executive won’t meet, can’t meet is a government which has failed. I have long said mandatory coalition is unworkable and the spectacle at Stormont speaks for itself.

It should be no surprise to any thinking person that if Sinn Fein is handed a veto, as they are under the Belfast Agreement, they will exploit it for their own nefarious ends. Sinn Fein is not in Stormont to bring good government to Northern Ireland. They don’t even believe in, recognise or support Northern Ireland. They are there to abuse and exploit their power to drive forward their all-Ireland agenda, of which terminating British control of policing and justice is a key part.

Peter Robinson having thrown down the gauntlet over this meeting, the question now is how does he make good on his threat to bring Sinn Fein to heel. Who will put manners on who?

I fear, like Trimble before him, Peter Robinson, for the sake of clinging to office, will end up feeding the insatiable demands of IRA/Sinn Fein. The coming days will show just how successful Sinn Fein’s bully boy tactics have been. Even if this crisis resolves on the usual diet of “fudge and budge”, it will not be the last because the system of government is inherently unworkable. The sooner Sinn Fein is gone from government, and the system which ever let them in, the better for us all.”

NI politics