On the day that Gordon Brown arrived in Northern Ireland to heap pressure on pro-Agreement Unionists to accede to Sinn Fein demands and agree to the devolution of policing and justice, TUV vice-chair Keith Harbinson again spelt out why his party opposed the powers coming to Stormont:

“The devolution of policing and justice powers to Belfast is not a Unionist objective. Those who foolishly try to argue otherwise are deluded. It is true to say that in the past our forefathers were adamant that policing and justice should be controlled by locally elected people. However, the Stormont of today is radically different from that presided over by Lord Craigavon.

“Consider the facts:

• Sinn Fein have already publically stated that they see the devolution of policing and justice as a staging post towards an all-Ireland policing and justice system. Hardly surprising as immediately upon them being devolved, the power come under the influence of the Belfast Agreement’s North/South structures;

 

• The DUP/Sinn Fein deal only lasts until 2012 at which point Republicans will doubtless demand new concessions;

 

• All cross-cutting issues from the Justice Department will have to go before the Executive where Sinn Fein/IRA hold an absolute veto and

 

• Devolutioncannot deliver in relation to the powers it already has – look at the shambles in education and the daily bickering between First Ministers Robinson and McGuinness. How, therefore, can the public have confidence that the Executive can handle these sensitive powers?

“It is high time that Unionists stopped playing to Sinn Fein’s agenda. Devolution of policing and justice has been top of the Republican wish-list for a long time. It will never be a Unionist ideal to grant such sensitive powers to Stormont’s terrorist inclusive executive”.