A Tangled Web

'Ourselves Alone' and 'Themselves Alone': What a Perfect Match



Now we know why the SDLP has been virtually indistinguishable from Sinn Fein/IRA for the past decade. Their 'leader' (that's a laugh!!) has said that the SDLP will defend the Belfast Agreement - alone if necessary.



Ah, poor Mark! His limited intelligence has yet to grasp the reality that the shoddy deal, whose genesis lay with the meeting of minds his former leader had with a known terrorist Godfather back in 1988, is dead. The Agreement as negotiated and falsely promoted as a template of peace and democracy six years ago is no more. To paraphrase John Cleese in the Monty Python 'Parrot Sketch', the Belfast Agreement 'has ceased to be. It's gone to meet its maker. It's fallen from the perch and joined the choir invisible. This is an ex-agreement.'



No longer will the pro-Union people tolerate IRA apologists wielding their power like some mediaeval landowner. The days of promulgating North/South arrangements on the basis of political and constitutional engineering are truly over. If I had any doubts (and I did) prior to the talks at Leeds Castle, I can safely say many have been dispelled at this moment in time. As aforementioned, nationalist Ireland will have to accept that if its precious institutions are to survive in any shape or form, the fundamental tenets of democracy will have to be fully catered for. No more half-truths; nods and winks; false dawns; nationalist greed; pandering to IRA terrorism; and obfuscation. This time, the ball is very much in their court.