Allister pours scorn on Telegraph Poll
04 January 2010
Statement by TUV leader Jim Allister:
“On 19th August last year I predicted we could “expect a NIO/Belfast Telegraph poll telling us how overwhelmingly everyone is in demanding the devolution of policing and justice! The script is fairly predictable.” So I didn’t fall off my chair in shock when I saw this morning’s Telegraph. Unionists have long become accustomed to the Belfast Telegraph trotting out polls which support the NIO line at key moments in the political process.
“The laughable thing about this poll is that it comes hard on the heels of polls published in the same paper which suggested that people across the community divide – both Protestant and Roman Catholic – believed the Executive were making a pig’s ear of the powers they already have. How can that be squared with people demanding that Stormont be given more power?
“No Unionist would support the devolution of policing and justice to a terrorist inclusive executive. Sinn Fein’s purpose and goal is plain: the ending of British control of policing and justice; it is central to their ‘Brits Out’ strategy, which is why it is such a seminal issue for them. Unionists who seek not to thwart but facilitate that goal are utterly misguided.
“No Unionist should be assisting the transfer of such powers to an Executive in which IRA/Sinn Fein holds the vital power of veto. Do we want the same mayhem as there is in education, with McGuinness and Kelly able to meddle in every key justice decision – remembering all Justice legislation, all key expenditure and every cross-cutting and controversial issue will have to go through the Executive. The puppet minister will be a mere bit player.
“For TUV devolving policing and justice powers is not a question of money or timing, it is something which on principle should never happen so long as there are terrorists in government.”
