MEP speaks of 'Unionist discards'
01 May 2007
Speaking to the AGM of the Ulster Special Constabulary Association in Kilkeel on Saturday, 28 April, Jim Allister MEP said under the new dispensation theirs was a tradition which could expect increasing marginalisation.
Mr Allister continued, “It was not they but the travelling people who would be invited to the First and Deputy First Minister’s first official reception at Stormont on 9th May. Such was the new chic of joint government.
“Just as the ill-gotten gains of the IRA were already forgotten, so too the hard-gotten struggles of USC, RUC, UDR and RIR would equally be forgotten in this new Sinn Fein-friendly era. An era of much give and take: giving by unionism and taking by republicanism. Even in the month since 26th March it has all been one-way traffic. Grand gestures and speeches of conciliation by Ian Paisley, soaked up, sponge-like, by Sinn Fein, but not reciprocated. So it would continue.
Sinn Fein can’t believe its luck. It gets into government as an equal, while being able to keep its precious Army Council, the luxury of cherry-picking which aspects of policing to support and individual members are still able to engage in criminality.”
