Statement by TUV Leader Jim Allister on the Rasharkin situation:-

 

“Confirmation from the Parades Commission that it refuses to revise its pernicious Rasharkin decision confounds the conscious danger in which it is placing parade participants, by deliberately leaving them stranded at the most republican end of the village.

 

“But this decision, which so diminishes the rights of the peaceful bandsmen and rewards the violence of the mob which Sinn Fein habitually brings onto the streets, also demonstrates that the supposed political arrangements, whereby the DUP put terrorists into government, are a one way street, with reward only for the law breakers.

 

“3 years on from empowering republicans at Stormont, loyalist parading rights in Rasharkin, and elsewhere, are at an all time low. For all their craven deference to Sinn Fein in government the DUP has gained nothing from their partners for Rasharkin bandsmen but greater intransigence than ever. Empty bluster against those they enthroned in Stormont does that alter that harsh but unsurprising reality, because IRA/Sinn Fein is in this process only to take and never to give.”