Devolving policing & justice is part of Sinn Fein unification strategy - Allister
16 July 2009
On the day Peter Robinson and McGuinness meet the Prime Minister in the latest negotiations on policing and justice, the Leader of Traditional Unionist Voice, Jim Allister has launched a broadside against the very notion of devolving such powers to an Executive and Assembly where IRA/Sinn Fein “hold the sway of veto”.
Statement by TUV Leader, Jim Allister
“Judges, at every level, and policemen, by the hundred, were brutally butchered by the IRA, under the guidance and direction of its wicked Army Council, while Martin McGuinness held office there as a Joint Master of Terror.
Today, that same McGuiness – who has yet to denounce even one of those murders, or provide the police with any information from his vast store of intelligence on IRA activity – will strut into
Policing and justice removed from the hated Brits to an Executive and Assembly in which IRA/Sinn Fein hold the sway of veto, where it will fall under the aegis of north/southery, is part of the same unification strategy, which in an earlier phase deemed the murder of policemen and judges as legitimate. Shame on any Unionist who plays their game.
Peter Robinson’s progression - from decreeing the devolving of policing and justice as being out of the question for “several political lifetimes”, to being the handmaiden of delivery of this key Sinn Fein demand - is rooted indisputably in the shameful deal he did in November 2008, whereby giving in to Sinn Fein’s demand was the price of clinging to office and ending their Executive boycott. Expediency, not principle, has long since shaped the DUP’s moveable approach to policing and justice.
The November 2008 deal is itself a sham. While it will give us a patsy Justice Minister till 2012, then, at best, a new political vacuum looms, when a new deal will be required with Sinn Fein on this most vital of subjects. The legislation even provides, as one of the options, that policing and justice could come under the direct control of the Joint First Ministers! And, yet, some would pretend herein a Unionist victory!
No one with any wit should expect anything other than a financial deal on policing and justice which will cripple essential services in health and education for years to come. The Prime Minister has the measure of McGuinness and Robinson. He knows they are so desperate for “progress” that – just like with devolution in 2007 – they will settle for any paltry offer.
Quite apart from the politics and finances of policing and justice making its devolution a road of folly, only a fool would give this seminal subject to the present dysfunctional Executive and Assembly. Look at the mess they’ve brought to the key subject of education and the deadlock on every front. Who in their right mind would give this bunch power over justice and policing?”
