Below are extracts from a speech by Diane Dodds MEP to the South Antrim DUP Westminster Association:
“In today’s (Friday 5th March) News Letter Alex Kane details how as UUP Director of Communications he asked for some amendments to be made to a Cameron speech. His request was flatly refused and Cameron delivered his speech unchanged. People will rightly ask, if the Ulster Unionists can’t even influence the content of a script, what chance is there of them having any influence whatsoever over Tory policy? If the UUP couldn’t get Cameron to change a few words in an address, what prospect is there of changing his mind over inflicting massive and stringent budget cuts on Northern Ireland and supporting anti-Unionist measures like 50-50? The reality is that Reg Empey has as much influence with Cameron as a flea does with a dog.
The myth that UCUNF would create genuine UUP influence over the Tory Party has been exposed. At the Standing Committee in the House of Commons, the Tory members lined up alongside Labour, the SDLP and the Liberal Democrats and voted to continue the disgraceful 50-50 recruitment policy for another twelve months. We all know that it was a Tory Peer, Chris Patten, of Londonderry City Council name-change fame, that introduced this disgraceful discrimination against Protestant young people seeking to become police officers.
The Cameron-led Tory Party has no moral or ethical objection to anti-Protestant discrimination continuing in Northern Ireland. The UUP claims to oppose 50-50 recruitment and they claim to have influence over the Tory policy on Northern Ireland. Why then did the Tories vote to continue 50-50 for another year? This exposes the spin and false promises at the heart of the UCUNF project.
I know that many people throughout Northern Ireland including lifelong UUP supporters will be very disappointed in Danny Kennedy’s response to this issue. He said that raising objections to the Tory Party’s support for continuing anti-Protestant discrimination was “making a mountain out of a mole hill”. The thousands of Protestant young people who have applied to join the police, have completed their exams, passed their training and then been turned down because they happened to be born Protestant don’t see it as a mole hill! Clearly there is nothing the Tories won’t do that the UUP won’t defend.
I am pleased that the DUP has secured the abolition of the hated 50-50 procedure. It should never have been introduced in the first instance and that the UUP would seek to make excuses for its continuance is frankly despicable. Increasingly people are coming to realise that there is no principle too sacred, no belief too heartfelt and no promise too solemn that it can’t be thrown broken by the UUP in order to keep onside with the Tory Party. I never thought I would see the day when a Unionist politician would describe the continuance of 50-50 recruitment as a mole-hill issue.
People in South Antrim are going to have a very profound choice to make. They can vote for a hard-working constituency MP with a proven track-record of serving his electors and their families and who is not afraid to stand up for Northern Ireland. Alternatively they can give their vote to a Tory place-man, who will be ruthlessly whipped by the Tories in to voting along the party line, regardless of what that will mean for the people of the area.”
