23/10/2026
Speaking at a public meeting tonight in Castlederg, TUV leader Jim Allister MP said:
“The past week has been a momentous one. Revelations in the High Court put it beyond doubt that the PIRA continues to exist, and that its ‘feelings’ were a factor taken into account by the PSNI when policing Drumcree.
“When the judge asked whether this meant there were concerns that ‘mainstream republicans’ could not control the ‘dissidents’, he was told that was not what it meant. But the PSNI refused to say what it did mean.
“It is clear, therefore, that the PIRA was no passive spectator. Its influence was part of the story of how the law was not upheld in Portadown.
“And what has been the political response?
“There have been plenty of tough-sounding speeches but no action from those who prop up Sinn Fein/IRA in office.
“Let’s be very clear: the DUP could remove the First Minister of lawlessness tonight by resigning Emma Little-Pengelly.
“O’Neill is First Minister only for as long as the DUP are willing to keep her deputy in office.
“With the exception of Carla Lockhart, the DUP’s response to events in Portadown has been shockingly weak.
“I sat in the Commons the other day when Gavin Robinson asked the Secretary of State what he would do about ministers who breach their pledge of office.
“It is Gavin Robinson who has refused to provide political accountability for the First Minister’s breach of the pledge of office by resigning the deputy.
“With the Honourable Member for Upper Bann as the exception, it would appear that the DUP have lost all self-respect.
“It is shocking that Carla Lockheart is the single, isolated voice on this issue within her party.
“O’Neill flaunts her defiance, boasting that she is going nowhere and demonstrating her confidence that the DUP will not face her down.
“She is calling their bluff.
“It is time they acted!
“Regardless of the inaction of others, I am pleased to say that people know where the TUV stands.
“Come next year’s election, the TUV will offer the people of West Tyrone the opportunity to vote for strength, not weakness; for candidates who will resist the Sinn Fein agenda, not prop them up in government.
“In this constituency, you can do that by casting your number one vote for Stevan Patterson, a man who has lived all his life in the Castlederg area and knows, like so many in this part of the world, what it is like to suffer loss at the hands of the IRA. Two members of his family, who served with the UDR, were murdered by IRA terrorists.
"If the DUP won't call time on the First Minister of Lawlessness it's up to the Unionist electorate to call time on the DUP!"