McElduff was right to quit, O Muilleoir should do the same

Barry McElduff finally resigned as Sinn Fein MP for West Tyrone yesterday, but it should never have come to this.
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Once it became clear in the hours after his shameful Kingsmill loaf video that Mr McElduff wasn’t immediately going to fall on his own sword, the Sinn Fein leadership should have acted decisively and sacked him then.

That the party imposed a laughable three-month ‘suspension’ on full pay instead of sending Mr McElduff out to political pasture will continue to rankle with victims.

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Unionists and victims were right to question the party’s failure to act decisively again yesterday.

However, 10 days after the video that inflicted so much hurt on the Kingsmills families reached social media, Mr McElduff belatedly tendered his resignation. He made the right decision, even if it took him far too long and it remains unclear what prompted him to change his mind, be it internal party pressure or the reaction to Kingsmills survivor Alan Black’s RTE radio interview on Sunday.

The next step would logically see Mairtin O Muilleoir, the former Stormont finance minister, follow suit. Mr O Muilleoir, along with fellow Sinn Fein MLA Colm Gildernew, retweeted Mr McElduff’s video on Twitter, making him culpable too.

But the suspicion is that Mr O Muilleoir, an outspoken critic of unionism, won’t resign and neither will the Sinn Fein leadership sack him. He is one of the republican party’s ‘big beasts’ and will be seen as far less expendable than Mr McElduff.

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But Sinn Fein need not think that Mr McElduff’s departure will draw a line under this deeply unsatisfactory episode. Its failure to dismiss Mr McElduff or take any action against Mr O Muilleoir, can only have added to the levels of mistrust between it and the DUP.

Political talks are looming aimed at an unlikely restoration of Stormont but optimism is at an all-time low. Sinn Fein has rarely looked so unfit to govern as it does now.

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