THE Ulster Unionist deputy leader, Mr John Taylor MP, has said there is nothing to stop Sinn Fein accepting the principle of consent while campaigning for an independent, socialist united Ireland.
Addressing the annual meeting of Strangford UUP constituency association last night, he said the decommissioning impasse had distracted attention from the more fundamental issue of consent.
Sinn Fein must accept that so long as most people in Northern Ireland wanted the Union, that would be the reality. Until Sinn Fein made that change of heart there was no hope of progress, he said.
Mr Taylor said he did not believe that militant republicanism would ever be extinguished as an ideology. What was important was that if a split occurred in Sinn Fein and the IRA, as small a segment as possible should go back to "military operations" and should be dealt with firmly by the security forces, including those in the Republic.
If Sinn Fein could make the leap of faith to the consent principle, and if nationalists could be assured they were not threatened by loyalist paramilitaries, they would see they had no need for guns. It would be interesting, he said, to see if the Forum for Peace and Reconciliation could extract a commitment to consent from Sinn Fein "or if it has been the costly talkfest wee imagined all along".
Mr Taylor also asserted: "If, Northern Ireland ever was a Protestant state for a Protestant people, it certainly is not today."
Apparently referring to the DUP leader, the Rev Ian Paisley, he said that for the leader of major party to promise the return of Stormont was not to address the issues seriously. "It is not something that can be delivered, to unionists, and only serves to relive the worst fears of nationalists," he said.
The International Body on Decommissioning yesterday entered the final phase of the task set for it by the British and Irish governments. The three man panel, chaired by former US Senator George Mitchell, began its deliberations on the mass of submissions and suggestions put to it.
The body is to remain in London over the weekend as it continues to prepare its report which is expected to be presented on Tuesday, less than 24 hours before it is published at a Belfast press conference.
Meanwhile, Sinn Fein alleged yesterday that reports that the RUC had warned people in the Lurgan, Co Armagh area that their names were on yet another list of alleged drug dealers, indicated a "sinister development" which could be aimed at seeking to influence the Mitchell body's report.
A Sinn Fein councillor, Mr Joe Austin, said in a statement: "The RUC does not have this non existent list, nor have they seen it, yet they claim it exists."