Statement by Ian Paisley on the Parades Commission's Decision on Drumcree 1998

Yesterday I told the Prime Minister, when he called me by telephone, that Drumcree would be the deciding factor and I warned him that the inalienable right of the Orangemen to process to their church service and return again from the same must be upheld.

Failure to do that would be a definite signal to the Unionist and Protestant population that the Government at Westminster had decided to sell out to the IRA agitators and that in the future civil and religious liberties would not be safeguarded nor guaranteed to the majority population.

The Parades Commission, which is a puppet of the Government and has over and over again capitulated to threats from Dublin and the IRA, has capitulated again. All down the line the loyal orders and the Protestant community have to be made pawns in the Government's policy to completely destroy the Union and the British identity in Northern Ireland. The IRA can orchestrate and threaten trouble and the Government immediately concede.

The decision made by the Parades Commission, dictated to by Dublin and the IRA and the British Government, is a decision that warns everyone anxious to retain their civil and religious liberties that they can look for no defence of the same from the present Government at Westminster.

The dye is cast, the people of Northern Ireland now must face up to the fact that the Agreement and all connected with it have joined a pan-nationalist front to finally browbeat the Unionist majority into submission.

I have already warned that the army had been put on special training course, trained to defend the IRA lawbreakers and to come down hard on those that stood for the defence of their liberties. Those troops are now in Ulster under orders from the Government to deal with the Unionists who would protest this evil capitulation to our traditional enemies.

No faith can be placed in the word of the Prime Minister or those cohorting with him. This decision of the Parades Commission is an indication that all through the marching season the Unionist and British identity will be sold on the altar of political expediency by the Government authorities. This is but the start and the end is too terrible to contemplate.