Well that’s UUP MLA Fred Cobain’s view after meeting the US congressmen in Belfast today, on the price Sinn Fein should pay for getting back into the Assembly.
“What the British Government is trying to do is play smoke and mirrors with this issue and say that criminality has ended from last July,” the North Belfast Assembly member said. “Any of the criminality and ill-gotten gains before that could be swept under the carpet. There is no way unionists are going to accept that.Criminality in all its forms must end and that means the criminal empire that the Provisionals have built is going to have to be brought some way into the light for the police to deal with. Every piece of property, piece of land, business will have to be surrendered. They have a financial empire. We have seen that in some of the money-laundering stuff it is very sophisticated. Are we going to allow that to continue just because it was before the IRA statement in July 2005?”
Mick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty
