Until the IRA army council was abolished Sinn Féin would not be fit to enter government in Northern Ireland, MEP Jim Allister said yesterday, explaining why he was resigning from the Democratic Unionist Party.
But he was not resigning from the European Parliament. "At this point I am not quitting my European seat, because I take the view that I was elected having made my position as a traditional unionist abundantly clear," he said.
Whereas others had departed from that position, he had not done so. "I feel that I am entitled and indeed duty-bound to honour the mandate and the obligation which was placed upon me," he told a press conference at his parliamentary office in east Belfast.
He said his decision was confirmed when he saw television footage of the Rev Ian Paisley and Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams sitting together at Stormont. "Like a lot of people whom I've spoken to today, my stomach turned at what I saw."
He added: "I'm sad that Ian Paisley has taken the course he has taken. But he was not to be turned. Everyone knows I tried."
Mr Allister said he himself was not taking the easy option: "What I'm doing is a conscience-driven, hard option." He had "no intention" at present of forming a new party. Asked if he would run again in the European elections in 2009, he replied: "I will rule nothing in or nothing out."
He had received phone calls from "people in tears" about the DUP decision to enter government with Sinn Féin. "I have a sense that amongst the grass-roots there is very considerable unease."
"I am not in the business of creating some sort of alternative. I'm in the business of doing what, conscience-wise, I feel driven to do." Asked if he felt the DUP had sold out, he said he feared that "the desire for office has clouded their judgments, has caused fences to be rushed".
Asked if he really believed that Dr Paisley, at this stage of his political career, was swayed by the lure of office, Mr Allister replied: "I think ego is a wonderful thing." Commenting that "I have something to say that I never wanted to say", Mr Allister read out a statement explaining that, if he were to continue as a DUP member, he would be obliged to accept the party executive's "decision to usher Sinn Féin into government in a few short weeks".
"Sinn Féin, in my view, is not fit for government, nor can it be in a few weeks." He had been fighting a "protracted battle" over recent months against the "premature" formation of a DUP/Sinn Féin executive.
"For me the abolition of the army council was always a litmus test of the sincerity of Sinn Féin/IRA's professed transition to involvement exclusively in peaceful and democratic processes. The army council is the apex of the military structures of the republican movement." It was a long-standing pledge of the DUP that the "military structures" of the republican movement must go. "Now, it seems, the army council can stay. Then, I can't."
