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Not everyone in DUP agrees with powersharing: SF

By Noel McAdam

Sinn Fein has forced the DUP to a place they did not want to go, deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness said yesterday.

He said the main partner party in Stormont had been brought towards power-sharing and participation in all-Ireland structures.

As Sinn Fein launched its European election manifesto, party president Gerry Adams said some in DUP ranks are still not signed up for power-sharing and equality.

Both Mr Adams and Mr McGuinness argued people remain within the DUP who are of the same “school of thought” as their former colleague who resigned, Jim Allister.

Candidate Bairbre de Brun said she was surprised on the doorsteps to find that increasing numbers of people are coming to realise the effect the European Union has on their lives. “It is essential that we build on the new relationship we have within Europe, with European Commissioners frequently visiting the North and our own ministers frequently visiting Brussels,” she told a Sinn Fein Press conference in west Belfast.

Flanked by senior party figures including Stormont ministers Michelle Gildernew, Conor Murphy and Gerry Kelly, Ms de Brun said that the poll on June 4 “provides the electorate with the chance to say clearly that we want to move forward and not to stay in the past”.

The DUP, however, said Ms de Brun had failed to deliver on key parts of the party’s 2004 European manifesto.

But she pointed to strong equality legislation at EU level and increased contacts across all key Brussels departments.

Belfast Telegraph

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