Monday, January 23, 2006
Monday Madness - DUP halting progress
It has been confirmed that at some point this week, DUP leader Dr Ian Paisley will meet with British Prime Minister Tony Blair to table his party's devolution blueprint for the North. These proposals however fall short of a fully-fledged Executive and have already been rebuffed by the Irish nationalist parties, Sinn Fein and the SDLP.Paisley has laughably claimed that his party's paper, humorously titled, 'Facing Reality ... The Best way Forward', is a realistic way of ensuring "the foundation of good government".
Under the plan it is understood Assembly members would be allowed to scrutinise decisions by Direct Rule Ministers and have some role in relation to the North's legislation.
Let's be clear about this. Paisley's plans are an insult to the people of the island of Ireland and the fact that both he SDLP and Sinn Féin have rejected the proposals means that this week's talks with Mr Blair are just another example of DUP intransigence on efforts to restore power-sharing.
James Kelly of the Irish News does a good job of taking Dr Evil to task on the "rubbish on 16 pages" as he calls the proposals. Kelly writes...
"My advice to Mr Hain is 'chuck it in the wastepaper basket' and I have had a long experience of the fulminations, political and religious, from that quarter since the old menace fulfilled Terence O'Neill's dire prophecy that one day he would end up squatting on top of the Ulster 'dunghill'.
"Meantime, he and his party members are to present their proposals to prime minister Tony Blair in London next week. The document is entitled The Best Way Forward, when we all know that it is the best way backward. No talks with Sinn Féin this time. Last time it was no talks with teagues or fenians. So be warned Mr Blair, give this gang of disruptionists short shrift. Their message is a quick descent from an uneasy peace to political turmoil. Send them packing!"
Mr Kelly goes on to highlight the problems the North will face as long as the Ballymena bigot continues to get his way:
"We know who has been playing blind man's bluff and we are heartily tired of his clap-trap. Is there no-one around big enough to shut him up? Why are the business and industrial chiefs so silent about the menace of a Paisleyite disaster sequence? Under his disguised apartheid regime the economy will remain in the doldrums.
"South Africa's apartheid regime is no more and now the last remnant of religious apartheid is to be found with a false face hiding in the sick counties of Ulster. Let Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern be advised and not fall for Paisley's new posturing as a devolutionist. He was the sworn enemy of the Good Friday Agreement and remains a determined and unscrupulous wrecker of this international treaty, backed by majorities north and south. Aided by the election bungling between the SDLP and Sinn Féin, he has used every trick in the book to attempt to dismantle the agreement bit-by-bit and set up a restored Protestant parliament for a Protestant people akin to the Craigavon-Brookeborough one which amazingly lasted for half a century."
James Kelly is quite correct and it's certainly fair to compare Dr Paisley, sectarian bigot and the key figure in modern-day unionism, with the sectarian bigots of unionism's past such as Craig and Brooke.
The unionist people need to say enough's enough in relation to Paisley's stalling. The man has been blinded by hate and rage since he was a young man and he is too stubborn and too prejudiced in his old age to allow peace and progress for the people of the island of Ireland.
It is time for the Irish and British governments, as well as all the Irish parties on the island, particularly the Ulster Unionists, to stand up to this bully at long last and to inform him that Irish democracy cannot and will not be trampled on!
You think you can continue to halt progress, Paisley? Never, never, never!
# posted by United Irelander @ 12:03 AM 
© 2008 United Irelander.
