DUP speaking with forked tongue - Kearney

Sinn Féin National Chairperson Declan Kearney MLA has said the DUP are speaking with a forked tongue on the key outstanding issues in the north.

Writing in An Phoblacht, the South Antrim Westminster election candidate said:

"In recent weeks a fiction has begun to gain some currency that the DUP is softening its position but this has no basis in fact.

"The DUP are conniving to portray themselves reasonable, ready and willing to go back into government but the party has a forked tongue approach to what’s needed to re-establish public confidence and the political institutions.

"Regardless to the DUP leader’s optical illusion on the Irish language and increasing absence from significant media engagements, the party has not changed its position on equality, rights or legacy.

"The DUP uses the rhetoric of a shared future but it does nothing to provide leadership or vision on how that should be brought about.

"As a party the DUP does not believe in equality, rights or reconciliation, and cannot move on from the past. It is saddled with theological, philosophical and political dogma and policies, which are totally incompatible with a modern 21st century society, and are in fact out of step with the aspirations and mind of wider popular civic unionism.

"The DUP forked tongue approach to this crisis and political progress means only one thing; after the 8th June election, the political process will arrive at a fork in the road.

"That will be the choice we as a society must make between political instability and crisis in the north of Ireland, because the DUP is opposed to equality and rights; or sustainable political institutions which are based upon equality, rights, respect and the Good Friday Agreement.

"Our people sent a clear message on the 2nd March: the electorate chose the latter.

"The DUP still hasn’t got that message and it's long past time that it did so."