TUV support significant and growing – Allister
17 November 2008
Speaking at a fundraising dinner in the Causeway Hotel Jim Allister MEP said he sensed the support base of TUV was growing significantly. He said from the outset TUV had enjoyed the support of those who could not embrace the notion of IRA/Sinn Fein in government – the Dromore vote, but the daily shambles at Stormont was bringing on board many disillusioned, who had been willing to give Sinn Fein the benefit of the doubt, but now accepted the TUV message that mandatory coalition was unworkable and that Sinn Fein was indeed unfit for government.
In the course of his remarks the TUV Leader said:-
“In less than a year TUV has made remarkable strides forward. From disparaging dismissal as “irrelevants” and “dinosaurs” we are now a serious worry to the Belfast Agreement brigade, and well might we be because we have that undemocratic, unworkable, dangerous system in our sights. Aided by its self-destruct contradictions, Unionists who thought it worth a try, now see it for what it is and have discovered that their faith has been betrayed by Sinn Fein proving to all with the wit to see that they have not, and will not, change. They have no more interest today in good government for Northern Ireland, than they ever had. The tragedy, and that which compounds the sense of betrayal, is that they’ve never before been in such a commanding place – right at the heart of government - to wreak the havoc that they seek. Those who put them there, and foolishly keep them there, will rightly take the blame and those who said they should never have been there are seen as right.
“Thus, I welcome daily indications that our cause is garnering increasing support. I can understand how many wearied by the years of terrorism, hoped, against hope, that IRA/Sinn Fein was truly in transition and thus were prepared to give them a chance. But, with typical republican belligerence, they’ve overstretched that tolerance and now as patience runs out the supposed deliverers of the new beginning are seen as having spectacularly got it wrong. To such Unionists I say there is certainly room for you in TUV as, back to basics, we seek to rebuild what has been lost.”
Released Friday 14th November
