Allister calls for meeting with PM
02 October 2009
TUV Leader Jim Allister QC has revealed that he has asked the Prime Minister to meet a delegation from his party during his visit to Belfast next week.
In a statement Mr Allister said:-
“With the Prime Minister coming to discuss policing and justice it is important that he is challenged to hear the views of those adamant that this key republican objective should not be delivered. The recent European election demonstrates that approaching a third of Unionists support TUV and our stance against devolving policing and justice to an Executive and Assembly where IRA/Sinn Fein holds sway. Yet, this swathe of unionist opinion is disenfranchised in the present discredited Assembly. So, if he PM restricts himself to Assembly parties he will not hear the authentic voice of tens of thousands of Unionists on this vital subject.
“For TUV policing and justice is not a mere matter of finance, it entails touchstone issues of principle. Those who butchered policemen and judges should never get their bloodstained hands anywhere near policing and justice powers. Thus, our determined opposition to gifting such powers to a government where IRA/Sinn Fein holds power.
“Moreover, we recognise the stratagem of Sinn Fein in seeking these powers so vividly stated in their 2005 manifesto: “Our strategy is for a new all-Ireland policing and justice system. That cannot be achieved without the transfer of policing and justice powers away from London, into an Executive and Assembly and the all-Ireland institutions.”
“I await with interest the PM’s attitude to the tens of thousands of Unionists which TUV represents.”
