UUP Parades Spokesman promises Lord Ashdown a ‘no holds barred’ appraisal of Parading process
UUP Parades spokesman Michael Copeland has said he will offer Lord Ashdown a no holds barred, frank assessment of his experiences of the government’s current approach to Parading when they meet.
Lord Ashdown is chairing the Strategic Review of Parading Body (SRPB) and has asked people to come forward and share their views with him.
In a statement Mr Copeland said,
“The first of what I hope will be many meetings between myself and Lord Ashdown will be a telling one. It will establish fairly rapidly whether Lord Ashdown is indeed an independent voice seeking to get the Parading issue on the right track, or whether he is shackled by, and has bought into, what I would argue to be the government’s current topsy-turvy approach to the issue.
I will offer Lord Ashdown a frank, no holds barred assessment of my experiences of interfacing with the Police and the flawed decision making processes of the Parades Commission. The Commission often seem less guided by common sense but instead seem hellbent in generating situations that effectively perpetuate self-serving outcomes to justify their own place in the process.
I have kept records of flawed determinations and their outworking on the ground. These records are detailed, numerous and comprehensive. They will, I trust, be taken on board, and will hopefully begin a process of dramatic re-appraisal of Parading and show how government, in my view, left a body in charge which has proven itself to apply indiscriminate criteria, is open to political interference and which, as a consequence, has lost the trust of one side of the community on the issue. The time for some fresh thinking is long overdue.”