It's time for Ian Paisley Senior to come clean
17 April 2008
STATEMENT BY TRADITIONAL UNIONIST MEP JIM ALLISTER
“It will be recalled that when I exposed the fact that Ian Paisley Junior had wasted valuable negotiating leverage at St Andrews on lobbying for mere constituency and semi-commercial issues, I called specifically on Ian Paisley Senior to clarify any involvement or role which he had. That call was met by a deafening silence from Ian Paisley Senior and spin from the DUP that Junior was “on a solo run” and had no authority to raise any such issues.
I have now obtained a further document under a FOI request, which implicates Ian Paisley Senior in the raising of these issues. It is a memo from a senior Civil Servant in David Hanson’s office to the Permanent Secretaries of various Departments, on the Monday after St Andrews finished, which says, “At last weeks talks, Rev Ian Paisley and Ian Paisley Junior took the opportunity to raise with the Prime Minister a number of issues on which they were seeking a positive outcome….” The memo (found here) then recites the 6 issues raised and asks for a speedy response.
I, therefore call upon Ian Paisley Senior, and the DUP, to finally come clean on this issue and explain how a very senior civil servant, in the week after St Andrews, could be emailing colleagues in these terms if the DUP Leader was not directly involved and present when it was decided to waste negotiating leverage with the PM on such irrelevant issues. Moreover, what depth of inquiry did the DUP conduct into this issue, which permitted it to spin the “solo run” line, if in fact the Leader was involved?
This documentation strongly suggests that contrary to DUP assertions and spin this abuse of St Andrews and taking the eye of the ball, went to the very top of the Party. Little wonder, the constitutional and political outcome for Unionism was so disappointing. If the target had been getting rid of the iniquity of mandatory coalition, rather than getting advantage for Sweeney, then Ulster would have been much better served. There were so many issues on which Unionism required a positive outcome, but instead it seems key players were focused on distracting irrelevancies.”
