Extract from a speech on Saturday evening by TUV leader Jim Allister at Mid Ulster TUV summer BBQ
“This week the High Court shone a long overdue spotlight into the dark corners of the PSNI, confirming what many believed, that Sinn Fein is the puppet master of policing?
“Despite all their twisting and dissembling, it is clear that Sinn Fein demanded the sacrificing of the two young officers and our pathetic and political Chief Constable delivered. The subsequent pretence by lying Sinn Fein that they would never withdraw support for policing is exposed by what their Chairman, Kearney, wrote at the time in An Phoblacht: “Our engagement with the PSNI and the police accountability mechanisms, such as the Policing Board, has been consistent and constructive. But it has also been conditional … some have clearly made an assumption that Sinn Fein’s leadership can be taken for granted, that’s a mistake.”
“The message is clear and fits precisely with them threatening jelly-kneed Byrne.
“It is not enough that Simon Bryne goes, there must be root and branch change, focused most particularly on expunging from the processes political diktat. A good starting point would be to import into the Policing Board arrangement the same ban as we secured for Special Advisers, namely, that no one with a serious criminal conviction can hold such office.
“That would be a demonstrable indication of real change and rid us of the obscenity of a convicted terrorist sitting on the Board and chairing one of its committees.
“The days of pandering to Sinn Fein need to be over if Unionist confidence is to be restored to the PSNI.”