UUP Chief Negotiator brands DUP policy as “Belfast Agreement for Slow Learners”
UUP Chief Negotiator Alan McFarland MLA, speaking to Ballinderry Ulster Unionists, said that the DUP has now adopted Ulster Unionist policy, proving that they always follow the UUP lead – albeit several years behind. He called their policy: “the Belfast Agreement for slow learners”.
In a statement Mr McFarland said,
“It’s hard to fault the DUP at the moment, they are following the lead given by the UUP over the past 10 years and proving that UUP policy was correct. Pushing the boundaries out, Peter Robinson’s visit to the British-Irish Inter-parliamentary group in Killarney and his ground breaking ‘sons and daughters of the planter and the gael’ speech in America were liberal Unionist in their nature, Well done Peter!
It is interesting that, along with the moderating influence of ex-UUP MLAs, Jeffrey Donaldson, Arlene Foster and Norah Beare, the DUP party administration is now run by former Young Ulster Unionists, resulting in the DUP becoming more moderate and in the process of being ‘civilised’.
However, there is a political reality that surely must register with the DUP:
- If we do not get control of our own affairs through the return of devolution, the Union is in danger. The Direct Rule proposals will destroy our excellent education system. Rates rises will cost us dear. The Review of Public Administration plans will re-partition Northern Ireland. If the DUP does not get into a position to head off these dangers by November, then the government is threatening ‘joint management’ with the Irish – and the Union is in peril.
- To re-establish devolution, Unionism needs to do a deal with Nationalism.
- Nationalism (we may not like it, but it’s a fact for the foreseeable future) has chosen Sinn Fein to represent it.
- Therefore the paradox is that, in order to re-establish devolution and save the Union, the DUP will have to do a deal with Sinn Fein.
It is not if, but when, Peter Robinson will do the deal with Sinn Fein. He will clearly need ‘cover’ from another IMC report and one of the famous DUP tours of the Province ‘to take the public’s mind on the issue’. So come the autumn, though there may be opposition from Jim Allister MEP and the Ballymena Councillors, expect to see the Robinson wing of the DUP drive for a deal. Of course the biggest question of all will be: Whither the Paisley Family?”