"Dromore has given hope by many dispirited by betrayal" - Allister
23 February 2008
Speaking to a gathering of 200 at a dinner organised by Ballymoney Branch of TUV, in the Causeway Hotel, Jim Allister MEP reflected on the dramatic events of recent days and on the future.
Mr Allister said:-
“When a young man of 24, Keith Harbinson, can so humble the biggest Party in the country as to take 40% of their vote in a by-election in a DUP heartland – a by-election into which the DUP threw everything – and claim the scalp of the ‘Young Pretender’, then, something very significant is happening in Unionism.
It confirms my conviction that there are tens of thousands of Unionists across the Province who refuse to accept the validity of being governed by unrepentant terrorists and who never again will vote for those who put them there.
Far from splitting and diminishing the Unionist vote, we are in fact maximising it, by giving disaffected Unionists someone and something to vote for. With the other two unionist parties now fanatically implementing the Belfast Agreement, with little to choose between them, we now present a viable alternative.
And as our voters in Dromore demonstrated they know how to use their preferences to make their point with most effect.
Dromore has provided hope to many dispirited by betrayal. We will build upon this foundation to give a Province-wide voice to unionists who know its right to hold to traditional unionist values and know its wrong to be governed by those who murdered so many of our kith and kin, and who still retain a military wing and a wicked Army Council.
Whatever the venomous attacks of those smarting from defeat, I do not intend to be distracted from the task in hand.
The swiftness with which Ian Junior was dispatched - soon to be followed by his father, because he has served his purpose, for power-hungry DUP MLAs, of delivering Sinn Fein/DUP government - demonstrates the power of the unionist electorate. If this is what 800 voters in Dromore can do, think what Traditional Unionists mobilised across the Province can achieve. Our mission is to get IRA/Sinn Fein out of government and abolish the rigged system that ever let them in.
As we set about the great task ahead I am greatly encouraged by the growth of TUV; even since Dromore we’d had a flood of membership enquiries. We are already organised in much of the Province and with further new branches to follow shortly, we have got the momentum to carry us forward. In North Antrim it is particularly encouraging to see two large branches already at work, recruiting and fundraising for the battles ahead.
The European Election in June 09 is likely to be the first Province-wide test, but whether it comes there or in further by-elections, or even in a General Election, we’ll be ready for the challenge. I see Ian Paisley Senior is predicting my demise. We’ll see. That’s for the voters not him to decide. Of course when he issued that rash prediction, cosily seated between Marty and Bertie, he probably wasn’t expecting that someone much closer to home would get his come-uppance much quicker. Maybe, indeed, Ian Junior, with time on his hands, would like to take on the challenge of unseating me! Interesting that already in the EU election the DUP is more interested in defeating me than their Sinn Fein partner.
As for the jibe of being “our” chief opponent, I wear that as a badge of honour, happy to be identified as the principal enemy by the Chuckle Coalition. Of course, what that really means is that every traditional unionist in Northern Ireland – “the north” to some - is now the enemy. They always were as far as Marty was concerned, sad that Ian Paisley ends his career by now seeing them in the same light.”
