Ulster Unionist MLA Rosemary Barton has accused the Sinn Fein President Mary Lou McDonald of attempting to reduce the debate on any future border poll into a sectarian headcount by crudely equating religious denomination with political preference.
The Fermanagh and South Tyrone MLA said:
“Mary Lou McDonald’s position on a border poll is becoming increasingly erratic. On the same week that she issued two completely contradictory positions within a 24 hour period, she has now crassly equated shifts in the local Protestant-Catholic population to a supposed increase in support for a United Ireland.
“During a BBC radio interview, when she was asked to explain how there was a majority in support of a united Ireland, the Sinn Fein President immediately said ‘if you want to look at demographic numbers, the direction of traffic is in one direction.’
“That was a deliberate and crude attempt to equate the religious makeup of the local population with supposed political affiliation.
“I don’t accept for one moment that all Catholics oppose the Union or in a border poll would vote against it, just like I wouldn’t be so naive to think that all Protestants would vote to maintain it.
“In my opinion Sinn Fein are an inherently sectarian party. They continue to defend scores of brutal sectarIRA murders, including the ethnic cleansing of Protestants along large parts of the Fermanagh border.
“It was only a few years ago when Gerry Kelly and Sinn Fein circulated a leaflet in North Belfast stating that there were more Catholics than Protestants in the constituency and claimed that this now led to a nationalist majority. It was a blatantly sectarian and desperate pitch for votes.
“Conor Murphy, as a former DRD Minister, also has the notoriety of being previously found by an employment tribunal to have effectively made an appointment on the basis that the chosen candidate ‘was not from a Protestant background’.
“Not only are Sinn Fein totally inept at governance, and placing the needs of local citizens ahead of their own ideological demands, they still clearly remain sectarian in their political outlook. For a Party that only recently launched a so-called anti-sectarianism policy, their rank hypocrisy knows no bounds.”
