How can our system work when Sinn Fein wants to destroy Northern Ireland?

May I be given the space to reply to Mr Thomas Stewart who asks “what the workable alternative was that excluded Sinn Fein IRA and its nationalist allies and voters” from government in Northern Ireland?

(See link below, Monday, April 19, ‘Unionists complain yet fail to give an alternative plan’)

I am not a professional politician who is required to give alternatives to that which he sees as wrong in the government here. However, I have heard others put forward alternatives.

I believe that I have heard it suggested that we should have a ‘voluntary coalition’ rather than the present form of ‘enforced’ power-sharing which must include Sinn Fein, who repeatedly have acknowledged demonstrably it be their prime objective to destroy Northern Ireland as a state.

I think that in any discussion of this matter the operative word is ‘workable’!

In truth, it is hard to envisage a system that will work as long as preference is given to the forces of former terrorism, in the fear that they will return to that which is their ‘forte’ if they deem that their political ambitions are being thwarted!

Sinn Fein simply ‘blows up Stormont’ by withdrawing whenever they feel that they are not getting their way...

Of course, the Westminster government played a major part in bringing about the present situation, and no help or sympathy can be expected from that quarter in rectifying the present debacle!

Furthermore, Ulster Protestantism has forfeited the help of the only Friend it ever really had, the Lord, by its departure from Biblical truth and its embracing of ecumenical apostasy.

What is happening to our Province is akin to that of which the prophet Hosea said: “Yet I [am] the LORD thy God from the land of Egypt, and thou shalt know no god but me: for [there is] no saviour beside me. I did know thee in the wilderness, in the land of great drought.

“According to their pasture, so were they filled; they were filled, and their heart was exalted; therefore have they forgotten me. Therefore I will be unto them as a lion: as a leopard by the way will I observe [them]: I will meet them as a bear [that is] bereaved [of her whelps], and will rend the caul of their heart, and there will I devour them like a lion: the wild beast shall tear them.

“O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in me [is] thine help.” (Hosea 13:4-9, AV).

The only real alternative and way out of this mess which is of our own making, is a humble acknowledgment of our sins and a return to God in faith and an obeying of Him.

Failing that, we will continue to sink down into the pit we have dug for ourselves!

Rev Ivan Foster, (Free Presbyterian, Rtd), Kilskeery, south-west Tyrone

Letter: Many unionists complain about Stormont yet fail to give an alternative plan

Click here – Mike Nesbitt: ‘Conversion therapy debate shows why we can’t have unionist unity’

Click here – Nolan’s patience tested by SDLP man: ‘I’ve asked you 20 times’

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