Dissidents say Michelle O’Neill’s letter to the Queen won’t impress unionists

Anti-Belfast Agreement republicans denounced the Sinn Fein deputy leader’s letter, adding that they were “not surprised anymore” over the party’s attitude shift on British royalty.

Dee Fennell, spokesman for Saoradh, the group the PSNI says is allied to the New IRA, said: “There was a time when Sinn Fein activists not only opposed the British monarchy but actively demonstrated against British royals’ visits to Ireland.

“But today it should come as no surprise to republicans that Michelle O’Neill would write to the Queen offering her congratulations since her former leader Martin McGuinness shook the British monarch’s a hand a few years ago. It is all part of the transformation of Sinn Fein into a constitutional nationalist party who have stolen the clothes of Wee Joe Devlin, John Redmond and John Hume.”

Mr Fennell continued: “If the Sinn Fein leadership think that by writing a letter to the Queen this is going to be seen as a reach out gesture to unionists then they need to think again. Unionists think one way about Sinn Fein and that is not going to change no matter what kind of gesture they put forward.

“Sinn Fein is playing a double-game with its base by hyping up the republican rhetoric while at the same time ‘reaching out’ with empty gestures like this one.”

Republican Sinn Fein said it was telling that Ms O’Neill had praised the Queen’s “significant” contribution to the “Stormont peace process”.

An RSF spokesman said:”It ill behoves an Irish politician purporting to represent the people in the Occupied Six Counties to talk about her (the Queen’s) service to the British people. Is she saying that the people in the Six Counties are British?”