It is my pleasant duty to welcome you all again to the Annual Conference of the T.U.V. – the only political Party in Northern Ireland which has the integrity to tell the truth about the dysfunctional shambles that exists at Stormont.
The Members of this Party and those who voted for us knew when to say “No, it’s just plain wrong”.
I say thank you to all who have kept faith with the Party and kept their integrity. Thank you to all gathered here today, to all who have went out and worked for what we believe in, to our Councillors who keep on setting out our clear message in Council Chambers – you are doing a good job, keep it up. Thank God that we have people like you who are prepared to go against the flood of humbug and hypocrisy which pours out daily from those who surrendered their principles and moral rectitude for Office, and largely powerless office at that.
Above all, how glad we are, how fortunate, not only this Party, but Ulster Unionism, is to have Jim Allister to speak for true Unionism despite the sneers and jeers of those who know the truth but don’t have the courage to follow his lead.
I find it rather sad to listen to those former members of the U.U.P. who now sit as senior members of the D.U.P. and attack us. They left the U.U.P. because of its betrayal of the principles we still expouse only to be let down by the D.U.P. betraying those same principles.
I do think, however of the story of the Medes and the Persians taking over Babylon.
Over the year since we last met we have witnessed their political posturing and contortions of which any circus would be proud.
Unfortunately politics is not an entertainment – it is a deadly serious business – which determines how well you live and in our case in which Country we live. We know that defense of what we believe in is a continuing battle. It will not be won by those who indulge in armchair criticism. Irish Republicans of all shades, living as they do in a make-believe world, have always peddled a constitutional and political message that the Ulster people rejected. When their blandishments failed they always turned to violence in order to drive us into a United Ireland where their view of the world would prevail.
That has always failed against Unionisms’ solid determination to stay British. However, Republican assaults were not only violent they were a perfect blend of armalite and ballot paper, a blend of hard cop/soft cop right across their whole range of opinion.
Sadly though, in United Kingdom circles they were so convinced by the soft cop approach as to try and buy off the violent and seditious by endless concessions. The Anglo Irish agreement was an example of a loss of moral courage and craven deceitful surrender to terrorist murder.
I am sure that you have noted the comments of some in the media to the effect that the late Rev. Ian Paisley and Jim Molyneaux were either stupid not to have known what was going on or allowed themselves to be misled.
I was there and none of those pundits have ever asked my opinion as to what was going on.
Let me say simply and clearly that we heard the rumours but the information the party leaders were given from on high was that the position was secure. Events proved that the truth was very different. The brutal truth is that those men were the victims of lies. Not only were they lied to, our supporters in the Conservative Party were also victims of the same lies. The great problem with lies is that you cannot really prove it’s lies until the treachery and betrayal is completed. The full tale of that sorry sordid deal has not yet been told.
In such circumstances, if you cannot believe your own Government, who have as a primary duty the maintenance of the Queen’s Realm, who can you trust and how can society and Government function? At that level there has to be trust between Parties – their word has to be their bond.
Everyone in politics knows the objective of Republicanism, so how on earth did Messrs. Trimble, Paisley and Robinson, with the support of the majority of their Parties, later believe that IRA/SF would work to make Northern Ireland a success? Those men not only had the evidence of the ongoing violent terrorist campaign there was the history of Irish Republicans and the long-standing dirge that Northern Ireland was a failed political entity.
So far, however, as U.K. Prime Ministers are concerned, the last one in Office, who gave his word to Unionism and kept it on the Constitutional issue, was Jim Callaghan. He kept his word and we in the then U.U.P. kept ours to him. None of his successors kept theirs on the Constitution. The present dysfunctional, unstable and dangerous set up is the result.
Quite simply, Stormont doesn’t work because it can’t work, and that has little to do with those elected to it. It’s because the whole concept and structure created by the Belfast Agreement is founded upon a false premise. The latest agreement rests upon that same foundation. Therefore, to those who laud it as a bright new dawn I say “Sorry, no one really believes you”.
Look also at what is actually going on. The whole republican body politic is constantly trying to erode the British Identity of Northern Ireland. The omission of the National Anthem at
the Remembrance Day event in Stormont is an example. Once left out it would be gone for ever. The endless succession of Inquiries into the actions of the security forces combatting the I.R.A. is another. Blacken them and blame them is the scheme.
The French security forces and Government take a different approach. Those Forces assaulted an occupied block of flats killing and capturing the terrorist gang within. A ferocious barrage of automatic fire was used. Will there be complaints about the use of excessive force? Would the French Government ever allow inquiries? No! There will not, for the French Nation and Government will live by the dictum of De Gaulle that “A Nation which cannot defend itself is no Nation”. Where is the major Party in this Nation who lives by that standard, especially in this exceedingly dangerous World in which we live?
I am proud to be in this Party where we are prepared to tell the Unionist people the truth. To challenge them to awake from their slumber and fight and win the battles of the coming year. Thank God that we have people who are prepared to stand for office.
I say to those Unionists who are weary, infuriated by broken promises, who are in dismay and say to Unionist politicians “You are all the same.”
I tell them “We are not all the same, but if you vote for the same people as before you will get the same outcome. If you vote for T.U.V. you will get the change you want and what Ulster needs. Put our people there and they will do the job.”