Ulster Unionist opponents of the Good Friday Agreement this evening increased pressure on the party not to enter a power-sharing executive with Sinn Fein unless IRA weapons are decommissioned. Lagan Valley MP Jeffrey Donaldson, who was in the crowd attending a rally at Stormont at the end of a march through Belfast, said that the people of Northern Ireland wanted his party to resist Government pressure on them to form an executive with Sinn Féin before disarmament.
During today’s march to Stormont, Unionists defied a Belfast City Council ruling by laying a wreath for victims of republican violence at the Cenotaph beside Belfast City Hall. The wreath was brought to the gates of the Cenotaph by Thelma Johnstone, whose son was one of the last RUC officers to be murdered by the IRA. DUP councillor Nigel Dodds and Ulster Unionist councillor Jim Rodgers then placed the wreath at the Cenotaph as hundreds of marchers looked on from outside the gates. The organisers of the demonstration, who also organised this summer's so-called "Long March" to Drumcree, then proceeded to Stormont. On the way the demonstration was joined by a number of Orange Order feeder parades. At Parliament Buildings, speaker after speaker condemned the Patten Report, called on the IRA to end violence and hand over all its weapons for ballistic tests. They also said that Sinn Féin should never be allowed into Government.
Ulster Unionist members of the Northern Assembly are meeting at a secret location in Scotland this weekend to review the party's strategy in the peace process. The Ulster Unionist deputy leader, John Taylor, has said that he will not attend the talks in Scotland. Speaking in Newtownards last night, he said that he had commitments he could not change. He said that he already knew the outcome of the meeting and he still holds in the principle of ‘No guns no government’. Mr Taylor has already pulled out of the UUP's involvement in the George Mitchell's review of the implementation of the Good Friday Agreement. Mr Taylor has already said that Sinn Féin should not be allowed into government without IRA decommissioning its weapons.
Sinn Féin is also meeting this weekend at a secret location in the northwest to discuss a number of issues including its role in the ongoing Mitchell review. The party is calling the meeting a ‘think-tank’ session. They say that members will discuss a series of issues including electoral strategy, the state of the peace process, Patten report, and the Mitchell review. Private discussions will also be held on the resumption of the Dáil and corruption in public life.
