The events surrounding last weekend’s parade have been widely reported and discussed. Community relations have been damaged and social and economic regeneration in some of the most socially deprived areas of Northern Ireland have been set back.
The Parades Commission is a democratically constituted body carrying out a thankless task that can never satisfy everyone and will probably upset ‘loyalists’ more than ‘nationalists’ as loyalists hold more parades. This does not excuse the situation where elected politicians either support or refuse to condemn groups who are intent on breaking the law. This is particularly serious when some of those politicians are Ministers in the Northern Ireland Government. No one gets to choose which laws they observe and that applies most of all to elected politicians who set laws.
These local politicians can remove the Parades Commission at anytime if they can agree what should replace it. They have utterly failed to deliver an alternative and yet they still feel that they can criticise the Parades Commission and condone those who break its rulings. It is shameful to use the Parades Commission as a scapegoat when it is prepared to do the job that local politicians do not have the courage to take responsibility for themselves.
We are slowly drifting into a situation where parades could define the future of politics in Northern Ireland. They are being used by all sides to stir up sectarianism and whether it be Unionist politicians on Saturday or Sinn Fein on previous occasions who are prepared to lend support to law breakers and to use parading for their own ends it is wrong. The outcome of irresponsible words by politicians will be more injured police officers, deeply damaged community relations and further social and economic decline in areas that need regeneration most. We cannot allow this to happen and we must continually press our politicians on all sides to reach a resolution even if it challenges some of their voters.
Now is the time for strong leadership to be shown by our elected politicians to avert this possibility.
Trevor Ringland
Lesley Macaulay
NI Conservatives