DUP Puts in Place More Pieces of the Republican Jig-Saw says Allister
08 July 2009
Statement by TUV Leader Jim Allister on Policing & Justice developments:
“Day by day the DUP is delivering on its deal with IRA/Sinn Fein whereby last November they caved in to the republican demand for swift devolution of policing and justice. This week the enabling legislation will emerge as the next step in putting all the republicans’ ducks in a row.
“It is not just the massive somersault from “political lifetimes” to such devolution within months, which is staggering, but the fact that any Unionist should be facilitating, never mind promoting, the devolution of policing and justice to an Executive and Assembly in which IRA/Sinn Fein hold sway.
“The fact that no Unionist need apply for this post, as part of the deal with Sinn Fein, is a disgrace. I for one do not accept that Unionists are unsuited to hold a Justice portfolio and regard it as a calculated republican slight on Unionism which the DUP has shamefully conceded.
“Such is the urgency to deliver on the Sinn Fein agenda that I predict the financial deal, which will be reached, will fall far short of what is required and vital services, like education and health, will struggle to make up future shortfalls. Just as at the outset of devolution these local politicians botched their negotiations with Whitehall, and got a mere fraction of that they promised, so their desperation to get policing and justice will result in the Treasury again wiping their eye.
“None of these matters are being driven by the politics of prudence, but by the politics of whatever it takes to hold together the latest deal.
“One further consequence will be the final removal from Stormont of any party of even qualified Opposition, for all will then be in the Executive. Snuffing out any veneer of an Opposition is but the latest spiral downwards towards totalitarianism. Meanwhile a third of Unionists are disenfranchised and the voice of dissent is absent from this increasingly unrepresentative and dysfunctional Assembly. Some despots rule with a greater semblance of democracy!”
