Letter: UK government trying to frustrate unionists so that we'll cow down to republicanism
A letter from Archibald Toner:
I would like to pick up on the almost daily reports regarding the weaponisation tactics being used by Sinn Fein’s republican movement and the British government’s attitude towards our unionist peoples within the whole mix.
For me firstly, it just beggars belief how the Christian festival of Easter can also be politically weaponised by republicans to try and convince those within the movement that the IRA’s terrorist actions were patriotic, nauseatingly deserving of formal remembrance and that wide scale murder and social destruction was their only option during ‘the Troubles’.
Decades later and in the wake of their terrorist campaign, how then did the Good Friday Agreement come about if there was no other option?
It comes as no big surprise then when we also see Sinn Fein taking full advantage of their positions in what should be a Democratic Northern Ireland Assembly.
Typically, their brazen (and purposely provocative) propensities include the pushing of the Irish language down people’s throats and using our assembly as a springboard to inflict upon us republicanism’s version of a united Ireland.
The conduct of the British government is anything but proper either, as exampled (not least) by the letters of comfort to IRA terrorists; the ongoing witch-hunt of former soldiers and police officers; and the somewhat suspicious Clonoe inquest ruling.
Tie in also the despicable attitude of Hilary Benn towards unionists regarding Sinn Fein’s weaponisation of the Irish language (a language which otherwise I would have no issues with), and a rather unsavoury picture unfolds!
Additionally, with getting no joy down south, Mary Lou McDonald then ups the ante here for a border poll and unsurprisingly the Labour MP, Fleur Anderson, enters this perilous game of ‘slowly, slowly catch the monkey’ by dictating that a border poll will be determined on the result of a non-democratic, unregulated opinion poll!
It’s not a bit of wonder that I, and others I know, believe that many within government are trying to frustrate unionists in the hope that we'll eventually cow down to republicanism without any ‘fuss’ - and just go away!
What next, under the guise of the GFA, can we expect from this apparent governmental/republican alliance given the blatant indifference and disrespect that’s being afforded to all victims of the IRA’s barbarism and unionists alike?!
May I also commend Owen Polley’s recent article titled Gradual erosion the biggest threat to NI’s place in the UK (April 21) to those who may have missed it.
Archibald Toner, Dromore, Co Down