SOUTH Belfast SDLP MP Claire Hanna has called on the Secretary of State to explain why the NIO is meeting the representatives of proscribed paramilitary organisations about Brexit.
She says the NIO engagement with criminal gangs stands in stark contrast with the Secretary of State’s refusal to meet Stormont Ministers in relation to resources for a pension scheme for Troubles victims.
Ms Hanna said: “It beggars belief that proscribed paramilitary groups, which are actively involved in criminality, racketeering and threatening journalists and politicians, are in talks with the Northern Ireland Office about trade arrangements across the Irish Sea.
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Summary: SoS won't meet Exec parties to discuss funding for victims pension, but the NIO meets reps for 3 terrorist organisations to brief them. Time to quit meeting illegal groups & start gathering the evidence to arrest and convict them.— Naomi Long MLA (@naomi_long) January 23, 2021
“The Secretary of State needs to urgently explain why these gangs, which continue to cause pain and misery in communities across Northern Ireland, are being hosted by his Department while he continues to turn a blind eye to requests from Executive Ministers to discuss a pension for victims of the troubles. It is a perverse sense of priority.”
There’s mounting confusion and anger in the unionist Brexits Withdrawal Agreement’s NI Protocol which keeps the north in the single market and has seen the introduction of an Irish Sea Border. Billy Hutchinson of the PUP said loyalists may withdraw their support for the Good Friday Agreement beause of it.
