Allister: Drumcree was never settled - and community relations can't depend on the denial of rights to one community

The Drumcree parading dispute was never settled – and nationalism should accept the “generous proposals” on the table from the Orange Order, the TUV leader has said.

Jim Allister has also said that good community relations cannot depend on the “denial of rights” to one section of society – amid a growing row over whether Orangemen can complete a parade down the Garvaghy Road – first stopped 28 years ago.

placeholder image — TUV MP Jim Allister during a press conference at Carleton Street Orange Hall in Portadown, Co Armagh, announcing their next steps in relation to the Drumcree parade. Pic: Liam McBurney/PA Wire

Last week, a landmark legal victory for the Portadown District over how their application had been handled by the Parades Commission prompted fresh optimism that a parade may eventually be granted.

Now, the Orange Order has offered a scaled back parade along the Portadown road – without bands and limited to 60 members. However, they have also made clear this limited parade would not constitute a final resolution to the decades-old dispute. For that, they want the full return of the lodges of the Portadown district.

Mr Allister told the News Letter: “Fundamentally, this is a matter of rights. For 28 years the rights of Portadown District have been ignored by the Parades Commission.

“The matter was never ‘settled’ whatever Nationalism may say. Rather, the brethren in Portadown have maintained a peaceful and dignified protest for decades when decisions went against them.

“Now the mere suggestion that they might at last be able to complete their 1998 parade has been met with outrage.

“In any society, community relations cannot depend on the denial of rights to one community.

“The generous proposals on the table from the Orange Order should be accepted and the fact that the Parades Commission has at long last woken up to its duty to promote accommodation as reported in your paper on Friday is in itself something of a belated recognition of what it has failed to do over the past almost 3 decades”.

On Thursday morning, the North Antrim MP told journalists that the day was “about righting an historic wrong. For almost 30 years the refusal to permit the completion of a church parade has festered. Now, there is an opportunity to see an equitable way forward” he said as the Orange Order set out its plans.