Was there ever a more blatantly dumb reason for refusing to allow an independent chairperson from facilitating talks between Sinn Féin and the DUP, than that offered by Arlene Foster and Nigel Dodds? They say you couldn’t have that, because the UK government is in charge in the north. That’d be the UK government you’ve done a life-support deal with. Besides which, Nigel – do you remember a man called Mitchell? George Mitchell? Right, an American person. He chaired talks here –which your party didn’t attend but to be honest you weren’t terribly missed. Those talks led to the Good Friday Agreement (GFA), which finally brought peace to this deformed green corner (DGC) of Ireland. Was the British government not in charge during that time?
And now that I have a grip on your buttonhole, Nigel – any chance of your party (sorry, Arlene – we deal in hard facts here) any chance of your party publicly conceding that the required money for those legacy cases should be released? The Lord Chief Justice has said the money should be made available asap, and your party has been loud about the £1 billion you’re shaking out of the British government.
And while we’re at it: remember those killings in Ballymurphy in 1971? Right – the Parachute regiment confronted by eleven innocent people whom they then felt they had to shoot dead. With your deeply held respect for British justice, do you think you could have a word with Theresa May and ask her to pass over the names of the men on duty during those several blood-soaked days in Ballymurphy? Yes I know we’re talking about veterans who are now in old age. So are some of the relatives of those killed, who’ve still not got so much as a sniff of the truth, let alone justice. So stem the tear-in-eye hogwash about trembling old soldiers being hauled from retirement homes. It’s time you impressed on your ally in government that sending over soldiers from Britain to Ireland and killing unarmed Irish citizens really isn’t an acceptable foreign policy.
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