The leader of the Ulster Democratic Party, Mr Gary McMichael, has stated his determination to make the new Northern Assembly work and to prevent "wreckers" from sabotaging it. The party, in launching its manifesto yesterday, urged voters to support pro-Agreement parties, although it believed that it was a "nonsense" to suggest that loyalist voters might make transfers to Sinn Fein.
While the UDP manifesto states that there can be no unilateral UDA disarmament without simultaneous IRA decommissioning, Mr David Adams, a spokesman for the party leadership, said that the UDP would use its influence to have "illegal weaponry taken out of the equation".
Another senior UDP member, Mr John White, who at the weekend urged the UDA to begin some unilateral decommissioning, was not at yesterday's manifesto presentation due to illness. However, Mr Adams said that Mr White's remarks did not contradict UDP policy. "What John was saying is what we are saying - that we want to see decommissioning happening at the earliest opportunity." Ultimately, UDA disarmament was a matter for the UDA, not the UDP, he added.
Mr McMichael commented: "What John has said is not inconsistent with the UDP position. It would be helpful if the IRA would acknowledge that their war is over. While they refuse to accept that the conflict is at an end, then unionists and loyalists are going to remain fearful there may be a further IRA campaign further down the line."
Mr McMichael also said that his party was opposed to former "combatants", including UDA members, being allowed to join the RUC. The UDP manifesto states that there must be realistic change of the RUC to meet the requirements of a more normalised society. "We will oppose the efforts of republicans to destroy the RUC. We also oppose changing its name and symbols or the integration of former members of paramilitaries into the RUC," the manifesto states. The UDP wants a "police service, rather than a police force, that commands the support, respect and confidence of the entire community".
While the UDP wants supporters to avoid voting for the DUP and the UK Unionist Party, Mr McMichael nonetheless called for unionist unity after the election. "We must remove what is the cancer within unionism, the lack of unity," he said.
Mr Adams claimed that, despite protestations to the contrary, the DUP was determined to render the Assembly unworkable. If antiAgreement parties had control, the Assembly would collapse. "If the Assembly collapses, people must consider where society goes after that. That would mean that, sometime, the same set of negotiations would have to take place again in circumstances where unionism would be in a far weaker position."
On parades, Mr Tommy English supported the stance taken by the loyal orders in refusing to meet nationalist residents' groups which had been "infiltrated by Sinn Fein". He believed that, where Sinn Fein was excluded from such groups, the Orange Order should engage in dialogue with nationalist representatives.
