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This month’s meeting between King Charles and top Sinn Fein figures shows just how far the party has drifted from its earlier radical stances, says a former IRA man.

Anthony McIntyre said that nowadays, instead of “victory to the blanketmen”, the party slogan might as well be “victory to the banquet-men”.

Mr McIntyre is a former IRA killer, who shot dead a fellow paramilitary (UVF man Kenneth Lenaghan) in 1976.

Imprisoned for the best part of two decades, he remains a committed republican, but has become a strong critic of Sinn Fein.

During his time inside he took part in the blanket protests, refusing to wear the prison uniform supplied to him.

He has previously spoken to the News Letter about Sinn Fein’s radical shift of position on the EU.

Once hostile towards the European project (which was explicitly denounced in the IRA’s membership manual, the Green Book), today is strongly EU-friendly.

Since then the party has also u-turned on abortion, abandoning its generally pro-life leanings of old, and branding itself staunchly pro-choice.

And last week Alex Maskey and Michelle O’Neill’s had a polite encounter with King Charles III (the former ceremonial head of the Parachute Regiment, now supreme commander of the whole armed forces) during which the king thanked Ms O’Neill for expressing warm sentiments about his late mother.

Asked about this change in stance, Mr McIntyre said: “What position have Sinn Fein NOT changed or abandoned over the years?

“I’m not surprised in the slightest. Twenty years ago, I think it was, when Mark Durkan went to the funeral of the Queen Mother, was he not called a lickspittle and everything else for having done so?

“Sinn Fein have been completely constitutionalised and de-radicalised... it’s all a sign of how much the British have won the whole conflict.

“People like myself think back to the blanket protests. We look at ‘victory to the blanketmen’ and now see ‘victory to the banquet-men’.

“Bobby Sands was starving on hunger strike in pursuit of our republican objectives. And [we’ve seen] Martin McGuinness gorging himself on quails’ eggs with the queen.

“They’re a party of vote chasers. They used to call themselves ‘the voice of principled leadership’.

“They’ve abandoned every principle they ever had.”

More from this reporter:

• Click here: Cleric rejects Dee Stitt’s suggestion that UDA/UFF part of ‘Protestant culture’ as Jamie Bryson announces north Down loyalist is ‘a client’

• Former would-be killer and ex-junior IRA leader among those involved with Irish language group that has been promised £4m by the Tories

Ex-IRA man on King Charles III visit to Northern Ireland: Sinn Fein have gone from ‘victory to the blanketmen’ to ‘victory to the banquet-men’