Paisley lashes out at party, church
Posted by Jim on January 25, 2014
Former unionist firebrand Ian Paisley has publicly accused the current
leadership of the party he founded of betraying him and of suddenly, and
brutally, ousting him.
In the second part of a televised interview broadcast on British
television, Paisley also criticises his successor Peter Robinson for
losing the DUP Westminster seat in east Belfast, and contrasts it with
the performance of his son who had a “marvellous victory” in North
Antrim.
And in a spectacular assault on the current DUP leader’s family, Ian
Paisley’s wife Eileen branded the Robinsons as a source of “sleaze” — a
clear reference to Iris Robinson’s scandalous affair with a 19-year-old
youth.
Describing his ouster to journalist Eamonn Mallie, Paisley says he was
leaving for a meeting in Dublin in February 2008 when he was confronted
by Robinson, DUP MP Nigel Dodds, and his own special adviser Timothy
Johnston. He says Mr Dodds told him he was to be out of office by the
end of the week.
“He said: ‘We want you gone by Friday’.
“I just more or less smirked, and Peter said: ‘Oh no, no he needs to
stay in for another couple of months’.”
“One wanted two months to prepare the way for himself and the other
one… I don’t know what he wanted,” he said.
The man famous for shouting ‘Never’, and for denouncing decades of peace
talks, ultimately won the renegotiation of the 1998 Good Friday
Agreement and secured a triple-lock guarantee of unionist majority rule.
But he also found himself as First Minister at the Stormont Six-County
Assembly — alongside Sinn Fein’s Deputy First Minister, unionist hate
figure Martin McGuiness.
Amid upheaval in unionism and after coming intense pressure from
colleagues, Ian Paisley announced his resignation as first minister in
2008, just a year after Paisley signed the St Andrew’s Agreement.
Peter Robinson took over as both first minister and DUP leader, while
Ian Paisley’s son, Ian Paisley Jr, was sidelined. But Robinson was then
beset with difficulties when it emerged his wife Iris, then also a DUP
MP, had had an affair with a teenager.
The fall-out from the episode was one of the factors attributed to Mr
Robinson losing his East Belfast Westminster seat in the 2010 general
election.
Paisley said: “The man that they put in my position couldn’t keep his
own seat in Westminster, and my son who followed me had a marvellous
victory [easily winning his father’s Westminster seat in north Antrim]
“And for once we are seeing the true nature of the beast – that there
was a beast here who was prepared to go forward to the destruction of
the party, because losing seats in Northern Ireland is very serious and
for East Belfast not to be a unionist seat in the House of Commons is a
terrible blow.”
Commenting on accusations of corruption against her son, Ian Jr, Mrs
Paisley tells the documentary:
“Ian’s name was cleared by the authorities in Stormont, everything that
was said against him was proved to be false and he never brought any
sleaze. His wife didn’t do anything wrong, he didn’t do anything wrong.
“There was nothing morally wrong with his character or his life. And we
know eventually where the sleaze did come from.
“It came in the home of the man who is now leader himself, Peter
Robinson, it came from his family, not from the Paisley family.”
However, the shifting power dynamic has seen the Paisley family
increasingly marginalised by unionist hardliners, such as former DUP
founder Desmond Boal, and even the extremist anti-Catholic church they
helped to found.
In the documentary, Mr Paisley said he was forced to retire from the
Free Presbyterian Church in early 2012. A letter from elders in the
church requesting he step down precipitated the move.
His wife described the letter from the kirk as “absolutely shattering”.
“It was hurtful that was the way they thought they would treat us,” he
says.