Palestine flag row: Lord Reg Empey says he's 'horrified by Belfast Council' as city hall becomes 'a playground for cultural war'
Lord Reg Empey has said he’s ‘horrified by Belfast City Council’ in the wake of this week’s Palestine flag controversy.
The former leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, who was twice Lord Mayor of Belfast and sat on the council for more than 20 years, says he fears city hall is now becoming “a playground for a cultural war”.
Lord Empey tied the nationalist-driven move to fly the Paletinian banner over the city from midnight to dusk on Tuesday, a move that split the council and passed by a mere four votes, into other recent controversies such as the decision to blitz the Irish language across on every council-owned park, playground, leisure centre and sports pitch – even in staunchly unionist areas.
In September, politicians voted to ringfence £1.9m of the local authority’s underspend to pay for the first two years of its new Irish language policy. A few weeks later, officials revealed there was a £1m hole in a cost of living hardship fund, with only £75,000 of an underspend left to cover the scheme; the council is now asking Stormont to cover the shortfall.
The combination of the Irish language blitz and the Palestine flag controversy, both of which happened in the space of less than four months, has Mr Empey wondering what’s become of the body in charge of Northern Ireland’s capital city.
“I have been horrified by the way the city council is operating,” he said. “It seems that the latest political stunt gets support; the flying of the Palestinian Flag this week, while only a side show, demonstrates my point.
“If we are going to get involved with conflicts beyond our shores, then why was the Israeli flag not flown after the Hamas massacre on October 7, 2023?
“But it goes beyond that. The city council is now proposing to spend millions on Irish signs, erecting them where there is no majority support and turning the city hall into a playground for a cultural war.
“There is nothing wrong with the Irish language, but Sinn Fein and their supporters are poisoning the well when it comes to convincing people that it is not just a political battering ram to promote republicanism. Sinn Fein see it as a sophisticated way of painting the kerbstones for sectarian reasons.”
The former UUP leader, who was once acting First Minister and has sat in the House of Lords as Baron Empey of Shandon in the City and County Borough of Belfast since 2011, also hit out at Alliance’s actions over the Palestine flag.
The party backed flying the flag when the issue first came to the council at the start of November, but during a second debate on it on Monday night switched their position, voting with unionists to oppose hosting the Palestinian banner over Belfast. Alliance officials didn’t fully explain why that happened, but earlier this week pointed the News Letter to “sensitivities around flag policies”.
Said Lord Empey: “The performance of Alliance in Belfast has been dreadful. Their hokey-cokey voting behaviour over flags demonstrates their total unreliability when it comes to maintaining a consistent and dignified city council.”
The Palestinian banner was originally meant to fly from city hall last Saturday, November 29 – International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.
Organised by the United Nations, the annual day of solidarity has been observed since the late 1970s. This year it saw a march through Belfast city centre; Sinn Fein led an initially successful bid to have the Palestinian flag fluttering from city hall on the same day, but the move was halted at the eleventh hour.
Unionists challenged the decision, which led lawyers to find procedural failures with the initial vote and overturn it. The problem, it was stated, was the council should have considered the potential impact of hoisting the banner on protected groups, but didn’t run the necessary equality tests that would give them that information until after politicians had already voted to put it up.
The flag didn’t fly on Saturday, but the issue returned to the council on Monday. Pushed by nationalists and supported by the Greens, it passed – barely.
Unionists tried and failed to get an emergency injunction against the flag on Tuesday. A court case challenging Monday’s decision is due to begin at the end of next week.