Allister answers DUP single transferable letter
02 October 2010
Below is the reply in today's News Letter to last week's letter in the name of Cllr Paul Frew
Dear Sir,
Last Saturday it was Councillor Paul Frew’s turn to have his name appear on the DUP’s single transferable letter designed to divert attention from the truth of how the change allowing McGuinness to be First Minister came about.
The issue is how and why did the DUP allow what was agreed at St Andrews, that the First Minister would come from the biggest tradition, to be changed in the St Andrews Agreement Bill? Therein lies the duplicity.
“The DUP’s consent to the devolution process moving forward was so indispensable that they had an effective veto on the content of the Bill. They could have made the removal of the clause, which gifted the First Minister’s post to the biggest party, conditional on their continued support. But, they deliberately and consciously choose not to because Peter Robinson thought it would be an incredibly ‘clever device’ to force unionists to vote DUP by creating the threat of a Sinn Fein First Minister. That’s why they allowed the St Andrews Agreement to be changed and acquiesced in the change made by the Bill.
“We can discover all we need to know about the DUP’s position by noting their behaviour in parliament when the Bill making this appalling change was debated. The Commons debate was severely guillotined, with no DUP objection. Not one DUP MP tabled a single amendment to remove the offensive change permitting McGuinness to become First Minister (at least the UUP MP did), not one DUP MP forced any vote in the Commons, including a vote at second reading on the principle of a Bill containing such an obnoxious clause, and though every DUP MP spoke in the debate not one of them spoke against or even mentioned the proposed empowerment of Sinn Fein, not even to protest the change from what the St Andrews Agreement had said! Why?
When the Bill moved to the Lords, whereas UUP peers voted against Clause 8, which made the iniquitous change, DUP peers voted for Clause 8, after an unsuccessful UUP attempt to amend it!
So, no matter how much they would now like to blur the picture it is clear that the DUP was content to see the change which permits McGuinness to be foisted on a unionist majority in the Assembly. A calculated decision was taken, in one of the most shameful episodes in the history of roll-over unionism, that creating the threat of McGuinness as First Minister would be a useful electoral tool to duress unionists into voting DUP!
Councillor Frew should acquaint himself better with the infamy of this act before rushing into print to justify the selling of the unionist title deeds to the office of First Minister.
Finally, if the DUP does not support the change made in the St Andrews Bill, why in the four years since have they taken no step to try and amend it, applied no pressure to HMG and remained tellingly silent when other unionists have called for such change, and never once raised it in parliament? The answer is obvious.
Yours faithfully,
Jim Allister
TUV Leader
