Taylor says 100,000 may come to Drumcree for Twelfth

THE deputy leader of the Ulster Unionist party warned that 100,000 Orange men could descend on Drumcree on July 12th. Mr John Taylor also said there was a developing situation where the majority community "is swinging strongly against the RUC. That is very bad for Northern Ireland".

He rejected calls for the Orange Order to just march back down to Portadown by the same route it had used up to Drumcree church.

People who suggested that "need their head examined. They haven't seen what's been happening in Northern Ireland for the past three days".

He warned that on July 12th the police could find themselves surrounded by 100,000 people coming to Drumcree on the outskirts of Portadown.

His comments follow unconfirmed reports that the Orange Order was going to divert parades from other towns and cities to the Co Armagh town.

He said he would not like to see that. "I would like to see peace and to see the police accepting that they made a mistake. Everything had been lost in the past few days due to a bad decision. Now we've had three days of violence because of an RUC decision."

He said "the situation is deteriorating rapidly on the ground".

"The RUC are now being overstretched to the extent that the army is getting more involved day by day and that will ignite the whole of Northern Ireland unless common sense now emerges.

Common sense, in his view was that Mr Major should reverse the decision by Sir Hugh Annesley not to allow the Orange parade down the Garvaghy Road.

Mr Major had a responsibility not to "dither". He "must take control and see why it is the RUC made a decision which has created mayhem across northern Ireland and try to rectify the decision before it gets worse".

Mr Taylor was the latest unionist politician to visit the protectors at Drumcree.

Speaking to reporters afterwards he said "the Chief Constable made a bad decision in stopping a 15-minute walk - in the interests of peace and reconciliation - and now we see what has happened three days later. Far from having peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland we have mayhem as a result of a bad decision."

He said Sir Hugh "must be personally condemned and also any politicians who influenced him in making that error of judgment".

He said the 15-minute walk along Garvaghy road was not through a Catholic estate, but down a main road.

When it was put to him that the Orange Order was holding Northern Ireland to ransom, he said it was the police and (British) army who were holding the "province to ransom because "they yielded to the threats of the Sinn Fein spokesman for the Garvaghy residents".