Council row as Alliance opposes DUP motion on innocent victims - amid warning about 'rewriting the past'
Unionists have hit out at the Alliance Party after it again voted with Sinn Fein and the SDLP on the definition of an innocent victim during a council debate.
A DUP motion was passed at Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon council arguing that the official definition of a victim blurred the moral line between those harmed, injured, killed or bereaved through no fault of their own – and perpetrators of violence.
The debate was prompted by a recent Stormont vote in which Alliance sided with nationalists during a vote on innocent victims – a stance defended by the justice minister Naomi Long. In a subsequent BBC Nolan Show interview, Mrs Long said she wasn’t “incapable of empathy” with people who got involved in violence during the Troubles.
“Often really bad things have also been done to those people, and that’s part of how they came to the point where they were willing to do those things”, the justice minister said.
Banbridge DUP Councillor Paul Greenfield was one of those who brought the motion to ABC council told the News Letter that the Alliance Party’s rhetoric “doesn’t match what people can see”.
“They cannot on the one hand talk of there being no moral equivalence between perpetrators and victims but double down on their support for a Sinn Fein amendment which deliberately erased reference to ‘innocent’ when referencing victims in an Assembly motion.
“It remains clear to everyone why Sinn Fein want to remove any reference to innocent victims, but Alliance have never explained why they chose to row in behind. Whilst the justice minister decided to focus on empathy for those who engaged in violence and the ‘really bad things’ they may have endured; the truth remains that there was always an alternative to terrorism.
“The vast majority of people, including many who suffered in unimaginable ways, chose that alternative and we should not risk ever rewriting the past and the suffering inflicted on innocent people”, Mr Greenfield said.
However, Alliance hit back, saying that victims and survivors “deserve to have their suffering respected, rather than exploited by other parties and made into political theatre”.
The issue was discussed at ABC council on Monday night. Unionists said the DUP motion was essential to prevent the rewriting of the past.
The TUV said Alliance had revealed “just how much republican kool-aid that party has swallowed”. Councillor Keith Ratcliffe referenced recent polling which showed a decline in support for the self-styled cross-community party, saying that perhaps “as unionists wake up to the reality of what they have become, they will reflect and change course, but I will not hold my breath”.
The SDLP’s Thomas O’Hanlon criticised unionist parties for “dragging” the issue through the council, which has “no input into the overall process doesn’t help those who have suffered”.
Sinn Fein defended the current legal definition of a victim, laid out in the Victims and Survivors (Northern Ireland) Order 2006. It defines a victim as someone who “is or has been physically or psychologically injured as a result of or in consequence of a conflict-related incident; someone who provides a substantial amount of care on a regular basis for an individual mentioned in paragraph; or someone who has been bereaved as a result of or in consequence of a conflict-related incident.
Speaking after the meeting, Ulster Unionist councillor for Craigavon Kate Evans accused the Alliance Party of showing “shocking disregard” towards innocent victims.
Ms Evans said, “The utter disregard and contempt the Alliance party holds for victims is staggering. Having voted against the term 'innocent victim' in the Stormont Assembly, to differentiate from victims and perpetrators, they have now doubled down and done the same in ABC council”
“Their attempt to use nuance to argue their way out of this appalling stance is laughable. Yet no doubt they will argue they stand with victims on Remembrance Sunday as we stop to remember those killed in wars long past and those murdered in conflicts still vivid in the memories of many”.
Alliance councillor Peter Lavery said it is “deeply disappointing that some parties have chosen to wilfully misrepresent Naomi Long’s comments on this subject for cheap political gain. Such distortion not only undermines honest debate, it causes real hurt to victims and survivors; people whose suffering deserves respect, not exploitation.
“Alliance has always made it abundantly clear that there is no moral equivalence between those who deliberately caused harm during the Troubles and those who suffered because of their actions”.