Nonsense from Adams about the stalemate that SF has caused

Gerry Adams was back to the default Sinn Fein position: that of political sanctimony.
Morning ViewMorning View
Morning View

The former party president said that be believed that Arlene Foster had acted “in good faith” in the recent talks.

How generous of him to confer such an assessment on the DUP leader.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Mr Adams says that she allowed a unionist “rump” to reject what he said was a good deal, and she failed to say “back me or sack me”.

What nauseating nonsense.

There has been huge pressure on unionists to concede to republican red lines, which have ensured stalemate since the beginning of last year.

Instead of being excluded from the process due to their disgraceful conduct, the pressure – led by Dublin and hardly resisted by London – has been applied on the DUP to grant Sinn Fein demands.

The most significant of those demands, an Irish language act, was almost agreed on a technicality that would have fooled nobody – that it was not a stand-alone and that it was balanced by Ulster-Scots laws that almost nobody wants.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

But even if that near agreement had gone through, there would have been a crisis in next to no time, in much the same way that if a similar deal goes through in the coming months it will have been made clear to Sinn Fein that political blackmail and a tactic of instability pays.

The party is already stirring resentments over issues such as joint flying of flags or the agreement that there will be no republican justice minister. All the while it is doing everything it can to create a crisis out of Brexit.

Robin Swann was right to propose at the weekend an Assembly without ministers. This is the most palatable way forward now that Sinn Fein blackmail has blocked an Executive.