Paisley calls for Sinn Féin power sharing ban

Ian Paisley will today urge the British Government to ban Sinn Féin from any future power-sharing administration in Northern Ireland.

Still seething over a major security scale down in the North and sceptical about the IRA’s pledge to end its armed struggle, the Democratic Unionist leader is to hold talks with Secretary of State Peter Hain in London.

He will also meet British Prime Minister Tony Blair on tomorrow to vent his fury at demilitarisation moves involving the disbandment of Royal Irish Regiment battalions.

Although the government announced the normalisation process in response to the IRA’s decision to abandon violence for politics, Mr Paisley refused to be convinced.

He vowed: “The unionist people are not to be duped.

“It will be my business and the business of my colleagues to lay it on the line to both the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister that there can be no place in any future government of Northern Ireland for IRA/Sinn Féin.

“As the representatives of the majority of the Ulster population, we will not be engaged in any negotiations with that aim.

“The aim of the Belfast Agreement to put terrorists into government will not take place and if the Government, allied with IRA/Sinn Féin and the Dublin Government, press forward with such measures, then they will have to face the righteous indignation of the unionist population.”

Unionists have been stunned at the speed of the demilitarisation process.

Soldiers have begun dismantling army watchtowers in south Armagh, Derry and west Belfast as the government responds to the unprecedented IRA declaration.

But decommissioning chief General John de Chastelain, who has had fresh talks with an IRA representative, has returned home to Canada – dimming hopes of an imminent weapons destruction.

Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams has urged Mr Paisley to enter new political negotiations in a bid to revive the Stormont Assembly.

But the DUP leader appeared in no mood for compromise.

He insisted: “There is no way forward for this province to have peace until all terrorists are banned from its government and only democrats hold and control the levers of power.

“Into their counsels, the unionists of Ulster will never enter nor will they gain their goal of a united Ireland.”