Letter: DUP and UUP need to recognise that by elevating SF/IRA to the highest office and continually yielding to republican demands they have maintained the ethos of appeasement that pervades the peace process

The high court ruling that I believe in effect shows that the chief constable disciplined two junior PSNI officers to placate Sinn Fein/IRA is no great surprise to those of us who have long believed the entire peace process was nothing less than a complete capitulation to republicans.

When truth, justice and righteousness – the bedrocks of any decent society – were sacrificed to elevate the godfathers of IRA terrorism to the heart of government, a very clear message was sent out that republicans must be appeased at all costs.

If the murder of thousands could be overlooked and treated with utter disdain by the government and the main political parties here, it is hardly surprising that the chief constable, in the same spirit of preserving the so called peace process, should sacrifice two junior officers.

Those within the DUP and UUP need to recognise and take responsibility for the fact that, by elevating SF/IRA to the highest office and continually yielding to republican demands (from prisoner releases in 1998 to agreeing an Irish language act in 2021) they have helped to create and maintain this ethos that pervades the peace process, that SF/IRA must be appeased otherwise they will revert to their stock and trade of terrorism.

Whilst the chief constable must resign, his resignation alone will not fundamentally alter the ethos of the peace process.

To do that the very edifice upon which the corrupt and sordid process rests must be destroyed, namely, the Belfast/St Andrews agreement with its fundamental premise that terrorism must be appeased.

Richard Ferguson, Dollingstown