Jim Allister’s pre-Conference article for the News Letter

13 November 2010

TUV’s unflinching stand against IRA/Sinn Fein is well known, but we are about much more than that.

We have a positive vision for Northern Ireland. A progressive way forward. A journey to empower the people and release them from the bondage and failure of mandatory coalition.

Stormont is broken. We want to fix it.

We want to turn it from a byword for deadlock, misgovernment and waste into a vibrant, working Stormont, with government built on a shared programme and a vigorous Opposition to hold it to account. This is the way to a better Northern Ireland.

The record of the present Stormont is one of hopeless and expensive failure. Such failure is no surprise because there is no common cause, no common vision binding together the parties that govern. So misgovernment and constant deadlock are inevitable.

Instead we want government formed by consensus on policy and an Official Opposition. Those who can agree what to do about our economy, education, health, and things which matter to our daily lives, get to govern, and those who can’t form the Opposition.

On 5^th May voters in Scotland and Wales will have the right to change their government. Voters in Northern Ireland will not.

In Scotland and Wales voters can punish parties for failure and get a fresh start, but in Northern Ireland you’re saddled with more of the same, because under the Belfast Agreement we’re second class voters denied that most precious and basic of democratic rights, the right to change our government. That is wrong, destructive of democracy and a big contributor to falling voter turn-out.

Anyone who is a democrat has nothing to fear from democracy. Any party which can agree with sufficient others on a programme for government and together command the necessary majority in the Assembly, can attain office by the fair means of voluntary coalition. If that includes Sinn Fein, then we – who exist to oppose, not facilitate IRA/Sinn Fein - will be the Opposition.

If Sinn Fein are only democrats so long as they are guaranteed a place in government, from which they can never be evicted by the voters, then they are not democrats at all!

Restoring basic democratic rights is indispensable to finding a durable Stormont. In May it will be by voting TUV that real and hopeful change can be sought. Vote for those who have presided over the deadlock, failure and dysfunctionalism of the present Stormont and you’ll get more of the same.

NI politics