Karl Reilly

Jamie, are you seriously lecturing an entire community about “supremacism” and being “above the law”? It would be hilarious if the rhetoric weren’t so poisonous for Christs sake You were convicted of possessing an extendable baton and later convicted over FOUR unnotified processions, convictions you unsuccessfully appealed. Yet apparently Jamie has appointed himself NI’s very own Professor of Law and Order Then we get the sermon about “hatred” from someone with an astonishing blind spot when the terrorism happens to be loyalist. You have defended the proposition that the UVF were not terrorists, characterised loyalist paramilitary violence as “counter terrorism”, and repeatedly attended a commemoration for UVF commander Robert “Squeak” Seymour. I am sure the victims and families of UVF terroism would welcome knowing that the UVF were engaged in “counter terrorism” rather than terrorism That’s quite the CV from which to deliver lectures on extremism. And what exactly is this supposed “nationalist supremacism”? Nationalists having equal political power? Residents saying no? Unionism discovering that “we demand it” no longer automatically means “we get it”? That’s not supremacy, Jamie. That’s equality The giveaway is always the same, when unionism doesn’t get precisely what it wants, you portray compromise as surrender, equality as persecution and nationalism as some existential threat. Perhaps the problem isn’t that “unionism must give and nationalism must get”. Perhaps it’s that the old days when unionism could simply dictate and nationalism was expected to know its place are gone. Nobody gets to dominate NI anymore. And if equality feels like oppression, perhaps examine the sense of entitlement rather than screaming “supremacism” at everyone else. A convicted lawbreaker with a remarkable penchant for sanitising the UVF preaching about the rule of law and nationalist “hatred” isn’t political analysis. It’s self-parody.