IMC's UVF murder bid claim puts Empey under more pressure - Alliance

10.53.08am BST (GMT +0100) Thu 5th Oct 2006

Newtownabbey Alliance Councillor, Tom Campbell

Alliance Party Spokesperson Cllr Tom Campbell has demanded that Ulster Unionist Leader, Reg Empey break the link between the UUP and the representatives of active paramilitaries immediately. His comments come in the wake of the IMC report stating they believe the UVF sanctioned the murder bid on Mark Haddock.

The Newtownabbey Councillor said: " For too long the Ulster Unionists have buried their heads in the sand on this issue. They hope that all the criticism will end, but it won't.

"Decent people are not prepared to support a party which is linked to the representatives of those who the IMC believe carried out a recent murder bid. The IMC believe that the Mark Haddock murder bid in Newtownabbey was sanctioned by the UVF leadership.

"Yet again the silence is deafening from many Ulster Unionists on their PUP link. The link calls into question their claim to be the party of law and order.

"The Assembly Speaker's decision to forbid the link was a fig leaf to hide their embarrassment, but the Ulster Unionists did not even use it to distance themselves from the representatives of terrorists.

"For a respectable mainstream political party to be involved with the representatives of the UVF is unacceptable. It totally undermines the democratic system.

"The link shows the hypocrisy of the Ulster Unionists, because they continually focus on republican violence but do not face up to loyalist violence."

ENDS