McGlone critical of SF united Ireland strategy
A UNITED Ireland will never be achieved by those who murdered thousands of innocent people during the Troubles, a senior SDLP Assemblyman has said.
Mid-Ulster MLA Patsy McGlone said that Ireland could only be united by “those who practise dialogue, persuasion and the building of trust, not by those who have promoted division, distrust and the use of murderous force”.
Speaking at an event to thank the teams of election workers who fought the European election in Mid-Ulster, Mr McGlone, who is the SDLP’s director of elections, said that some of those who “shouted the loudest” about Irish unity over the last 80 years had, by their actions, blocked it.
“Uniting Ireland means uniting people, not real estate. It should be fairly obvious that you can’t unite people by force, but that is the blind alley the Provisional movement trapped us all in for decades,” he said.
Mr McGlone said that the IRA and then Sinn Fein has “pushed aside the persuaders” of the civil rights movement and the “persuaders of Sunningdale”, instead goading young republicans to perpetrate decades of violence not knowing that the killings would stop only to let Sinn Fein enter Stormont.
“The Provisional movement has failed. It has not achieved a single one of the objectives for which it sent out young men to kill and to die because not one of those young men set out to achieve a seat beside Peter Robinson for Martin McGuinness.
“They were promised much more, they were promised a united Ireland, but it was all a lie. They were tricked into putting their own goal back by decades.”
Mr McGlone mocked Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams’ self-proclaimed “massive effort” to achieve a united Ireland, which he launched in New York recently.
“Ireland will not be united in Manhattan,” he said.
“If he wants to make a start, there is no better place than in the constituency which he has represented for 20-odd years.
“Of course, it is hard to see how any member of the Provisional movement could have any credibility as a persuader for unity in the Shankill. In fact, they lack such credibility throughout the island.
“Since it was formed in 1970, the SDLP has preached the simple message that the first step on the road to a united Ireland is an agreed Ireland, which we achieved with the Good Friday Agreement. We have created the conditions in which persuasion for unity becomes possible, is totally separated from any perception of threat or pressure.”
And, Mr McGlone warned, nationalist politicians should not assume that all who vote for them want to see a united Ireland.
He said the “job of persuasion” was not just among unionists, adding: “Nobody’s feelings can be taken for granted, especially after decades of futile violence and death.”
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Weather for Belfast
Tuesday 14 February 2012
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Temperature: 6 C to 9 C
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