Ulster Unionist MLA Doug Beattie MC, has hit back at Sinn Fein following their support for a motion in Derry & Strabane District Council which urged local schools to ban the Armed Forces from holding career advice events on their premises.
Doug Beattie MC MLA said:
“Yet again the Sinn Fein respect, equality and integrity agenda is in tatters. It is perfectly clear that their call for ‘equality’ is as warped as their commitment to ‘human rights’. Both are only to be delivered on their terms, viewed through a prism of a rabid and pathological bias against anything or anyone who links themselves to the British state or British military.
“For Sinn Fein to back a motion - no matter how ludicrous - to prevent anyone considering a career in the British military receiving career advice while at school sets a clear sectarian agenda.
“How does Sinn Fein explain away the work of British military nurses who helped fight the Ebola virus in Sierra Leone? How do they tell children - who are threatened by indiscriminate republican bombs - that the person defusing the bomb and keeping them safe is a British soldier? Just how do they propose to undermine the work of British UN peacekeepers in Southern Sudan while at the same time promoting the Irish Defence Force UN peacekeepers in the Lebanon?
“To back a motion that describes the British military, and anyone who serves in it, as ‘robotic mindless killers’ is not only offensive in the extreme but it does a disservice to the many thousands who gave their lives in wars past and conflicts present. It is surely a perfect description for the republican terrorists who carried out Bloody Friday; Claudy; La Mon; Enniskillen, Warrington and Omagh.
“Does Sinn Fein want equality? Do they promote respect? Are they truly advocates of integrity? The actions of their councillors in backing this motion sends a clear message to what they ironically call their ‘unionist brothers and sisters.’ That is – ‘you are not welcome now and you are not welcome in the future and you will never be welcome in any United Ireland in which we have any influence.”