Unionists should reject any deal the product of abasement to Sinn Fein - Allister
03 February 2010
Statement by TUV Leader Jim Allister QC:-
“The DUP may think their wordplay about Monday’s events is very clever, but to most people such disingenuous spin and avoidance of straight questions merely underscores the DUP’s disconnection from a Unionist community which expects candour and straight talking.
“The sad reality of this week is that since Monday the DUP – whose rebuffed leader was content with the vacuity and ‘constructive ambiguity’ of last weekend’s deal – has been back at Hillsborough begging Sinn Fein to throw him a few crumbs to keep him and their deal afloat. Any deal which now is the product of such abasement to IRA/Sinn Fein should fool no one.
“The spectacle of recent days vividly points up the falsity of past DUP claims that, in contrast to Trimble, they had put an end to Sinn Fein holding devolution to ransom. Not so long ago the DUP was boasting they had “ended the era of stop-start devolution and the intervention and interference of British and Irish Prime Ministers”. What, then, has the last 10 days been about other than Sinn Fein, with its gun to the DUP’s head, extracting more concessions as the price of keeping Stormont going?
“All can see that far from ending the drip drip of concessions to Sinn Fein the DUP has become the hapless props for Sinn Fein’s staging post strategy. Such is what inevitably happens when you embrace an unworkable system built on toxic vetoes to Sinn Fein.”
