Paisley 'paid price for power-sharing'
RECENT DUP defectors in Ballymena council have claimed Dr Paisley had now paid the full price joining in Government with Sinn Fein.
But DUP supporters said he had secured the Union with Britain.
One of the defectors, former DUP politician Councillor Robin Stirling said he "knew the DUP Party leader's end was impending "after the Free Presbyterian church took him out of the moderatorship a couple of months ago".
He said: "I think it was inevitable that his political career would go the same way.
"I think a bigger factor is that the DUP are attempting to modernise and to free themselves from Paisley's past – his extravaganza of throwing bibles, the street politics and the tasteless attacks on the Roman Catholic church."
Councillor Stirling – a DUP councillor before defecting to Jim Allister's Traditional Unionist Voice - said he believed this "new age DUP considers it expedient to obliterate its Paisleyite foundations".
He said: "It looks as if the new age DUP are biting the hand that fed them and made them."
Councillor Stirling said there was "was a conspiracy to get rid of" Dr Paisley.
He added: "There is no one else in the party with the same charisma and capacity as Dr Paisley."
Mr Stirling said he was witnessing the end of the DUP.
"There used to be 15 DUP councillors in Ballymena but six of us left and we now believe Jim Allister will eventually supplant the Paisley of yore."
"I believe Paisley lost his footing because he went into Government with Martin McGuinness."
The first DUP defector on Ballymena council, Davy Tweed, said "the knives out at an early stage to use Dr Paisley to do the dirt within the Province".
Mr Tweed said he had "no sympathy for Dr Paisley after the St Andrew's agreement".
"He is a traitor. I have more respect for my enemies that for traitors."
DUP councillor Tommy Nicholl – who has known Dr Paisley well over the last 40 years and was even present at the birth of the DUP at an Orange Hall on Sandy Row in 1971 – said he was "sad it has come to this".
"Having said that the man in almost 82-years-old and if he has made the decision to go who am I to say that he is wrong.
"He has left a legacy and will be remembered for keeping Northern Ireland very firmly within the UK.""He has done a marvellous job and gone out at the height of his career."
Councillor Nicholl – leader of the DUP in Ballymena – questioned how people knew if he had been pushed.
"No one knows the truth apart from him."
Ballymena mayor and longstanding DUP councillor, Maurice Mills, added that it was always up to Dr Paisley when he stepped down.
"Of course there were outside pressures on Dr Paisley but I don't think that would have been a deciding factor. I have seen him with greater pressure and still be resilient."
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Monday 28 May 2012
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