TUV launches Lagan Valley campaign
19 March 2010
Speaking at the launch of the TUV election campaign in Lagan Valley, Party Leader Jim Allister described their candidate, local solicitor Keith Harbinson, “as the man who put TUV on the map in the Dromore by-election and the man who has another surprise in store for the DUP in Lagan Valley.”
“This election will embrace many issues, but among the most important in seats which have outgoing DUP MPs will be these:
1. Why they have thought their constituents worthy only of part-time representation in parliament, while they collected a full-time salary for what is and should be a full-time job?
2. Why they solemnly pledged in their last parliamentary manifesto in 2005 that mandatory coalition with IRA/Sinn Fein was ‘OUT OF THE QUESTION’, but two years later gave us exactly that unworkable sham by escorting Sinn Fein into government and recently empowering them further through the gifting of policing and justice powers to their terrorist-inclusive Executive.
“So, trust will be a key issue in this election. Why should any voter, judged worthy of only part-time representation in parliament, think Jeffrey Donaldson worthy of their vote. Out with the part-timers on full-time pay. Double and triple jobbing – and Jeffrey did a bit of both before he was sacked as a Junior Minister – has not served Ulster well. In some of the key votes in the last parliament Lagan Valley was left voiceless: when it came to voting for a referendum on the iniquitous Lisbon Treaty, where was Jeffrey? Absent! When it came to the opportunity to reduce the legal limit on abortion from 24 to 12 weeks where was pro-life Jeffrey? Absent! Just what was more important to Jeffrey Donaldson than turning up to vote in the name of his constituents on those key issues?
“Neglect by a double jobbing MP is something Lagan Valley can well do without. An MP claiming expenses on hotel movies is something else Lagan Valley won’t miss.
“Elected to keep Sinn Fein out of government, Jeffrey Donaldson is now one of the Belfast/St Andrews Agreement’s biggest supporters. Indeed, what divides Daphne Trimble and Jeffrey Donaldson in this election? Is there anything to distinguish them? Daphne has always supported David Trimble’s wretched Belfast Agreement, and though Jeffrey made his name in opposing it, he now is its most avid supporter and implementer – any time the DUP needs someone to defend their latest push-over policy, Jeffrey is at the front of the queue for the microphone, well apart from a few weeks there when he was uncharacteristically camera shy. “Where’s Jeffrey?” took on a whole new meaning.
“But, Daphne and Jeffrey, they both now support terrorists in government, they both endorse the architecture and structures of the Belfast Agreement, they both believe in mandatory coalition, in Martin McGuinness as your Joint First Minister, in denial of the people the right to vote a party out of government and the right to have even an Opposition. So what divides them? Nothing, now that Jeffrey has come to work and implement everything he vilified David Trimble over. What was Jeffrey Donaldson’s battle all about, if now he can so gleefully sit with terrorists in government?
“I’m glad that in Lagan Valley there will be a candidate untarnished sleaze and scandal, a Unionist whose principles are not for sale, a Unionist made of sterner stuff than those, male and female, who have given us the ignominy of push-over Unionism. In Keith Harbinson we have such a man of ability, principle, integrity and truth. I thoroughly recommend him to the voters of Lagan Valley.”
