DUP throws in the towel
24 November 2009
Statement by TUV Leader Jim Allister QC:-
"Jimmy Spratt's performance on tonight's BBC Radio's Evening Extra either indicates a wing of the DUP breaking cover to dump on the Police Reserve or the signalling of the party's climbdown on its boast that saving the Reserve was a pre-condition and deal breaker over policing and justice.
"Mr Spratt's limp acceptance that the Reserve must go by March 2011 and his refusal to regard its retention as any sort of pre-condition will be music to the ears of Sinn Fein and the NIO, but a shocking climbdown from the pretence that a stand was going to be taken by the DUP to save the full-time Reserve. Clearly, judging by the comments of Mr Spratt, it no longer even features as a component in the mantra of confidence building, never mind as a free standing deal breaker.
"If Spratt is speaking for the DUP then their latest stand didn't even last a fortnight. Where now the chest beating and tough words of Jeffrey Donaldson. The least the gallant officers of the Full Time Reserve and the public deserve is definitive clarity and honesty from the DUP. Who is speaking for the DUP? Jeffrey Donaldson or Jimmy Spratt, because the present forked tongue utterances are irreconcilable."
