Durkan accuses Sinn Fein

In a hard hitting attack on Sinn Fein, the SDLP leader also accused republican leaders of trying to steal his party’s language without fully understanding it.

Responding to Mitchel McLaughlin’s claim earlier this week that a united Ireland was “inexorable”, Mr Durkan told PA News: “Martin Luther King offered the very pertinent observation that progress doesn’t roll on the wheels of inevitability.

“The very fact that Sinn Fein talk about the inevitability of a united Ireland in the tones that they do is hardly going to be very reassuring to unionists that they are serious about engaging in debate and about persuading them about the benefits of a united Ireland and negotiating new arrangements with them.

“We see this in the way Sinn Fein speculate about things like the census results. In many ways people could be forgiven for thinking that the journey of the republican movement from supporting the violence of the IRA to espousing peaceful and democratic means is little more than a move from a dead count to head count.”

Noting Sinn Fein had attacked the SDLP and parties in Ireland in the past for supporting the principle of Irish unity by consent, Mr Durkan said it was ironic Gerry Adams had in New York earlier this year talked about unity with the “assent and consent” of unionists.

“For us the whole question of the principle of consent is the consent of the vast majority of people in Northern Ireland to determine our constitutional status, either as part of the United Kingdom or part of a united Ireland,” the Foyle MLA explained.

“They call that a unionist veto, which it isn’t because it is only the consent of a majority in the north. To talk then about the consent and assent of unionists, that is actually a unionist veto.

“Then, they tell us when they talk about the consent and assent of unionists, they don’t mean that. So they are riddled with confusion.

“But what has happened is Sinn Fein, as on so many other counts, are trying to copy and borrow bits of SDLP language but they don’t actually fully understand it and don’t fully follow the logic.

“They are talking about unionists’ need to negotiate what type of united Ireland they want and let’s begin those negotiations.

“In an Agreement where we have agreed a framework of different structures which take account of our history and our different identities and affinities and where we have also agreed that the constitutional status of the North will be determined by referendum, what nationalists need to be clear about is that those kind of arrangements, protections and structures are given regardless of what the constitutional status is.

“Once you start to say we have to negotiate a totally different template from the Agreement, then you actually play on side the case of anti-Agreement unionists that if a referendum decides Northern Ireland is part of the UK, then we are into a new situation and we can renegotiate the Agreement.”

Mr Durkan is to due to deliver a keynote address at his party’s Unity in Diversity conference tomorrow in Belfast’s Odyssey complex.

Among participants are representatives of other political parties, clergy, academics, business and trade union leaders and members of the voluntary sector including Foreign Affairs Minister Brian Cowen and Fine Gael leader, Enda Kenny.

The conference will consider economic and social justice issues, the treatment of minorities and new politics in the wake of the Agreement.

“This conference is looking at the whole concept of unity and partnership at a lot of different levels, so it is not just about unity as we aspire to it in united Ireland terms,” he said.

“It’s about unity in terms of social partnership, unity of purpose in terms of economic development. It’s about unity in terms of creating a new solidarity in the community across divided communities. It is unity in all its forms and all its aspects and dimensions.”