Threatening posters cause reaction in Kilkeel.
As all elected politicians are putting their hands to the pump of post-Brexit settlement arrangements, loyalist groups across Northern Ireland are reacting expressing their total resistance to the NI Protocol and the idea of an Irish Sea border.
Their ideology is such that they believe they are part of a United Kingdom and Northern Ireland should not be legally or administratively conceding ground to separate their devolved area from the greater UK equation in the confusion that has arisen over East-West trade.
The current arrangements are far from satisfactory and one seafood exporter in the UK has complained of having to fill in 70 pages of documentation for just one export load of seafood products.
Seafood exporters in Northern Ireland are currently managing to export to the Continent via ports in the ROI such as Rosslare, but particularly French fishing interests in the EU are vociferous that UK produce should not enter the EU unless the UK makes concessions to allow EU vessels into UK fishing waters. The threat of a tarriff being finally imposed on UK seafoods is therefore a real one.
And in the middle of this UK-EU tussle, loyalists are making their voices heard further raising the temperature of the debate by putting up posters of a masked man holding a weapon.
Police must investigate sinister and threatening posters in Kilkeel says Sinead Ennis.
Sinn Féin Newry and Armagh MLA Sinéad Ennis has called on police to investigate the appearance of sinister and threatening posters in Kilkeel.
Sinéad Ennis said: “Last night a number of sinister and threatening posters were put up Kilkeel.
“These posters display a clear threat of violence and should be removed.
“The police need to investigate those responsible for putting up these posters and the motivation behind their erection.
“We need to see leadership from within Unionism particularly within the DUP coming out and condemning these sinister posters and the threat they contain.
“There can be no succour given to those who would make threats or use violence.”
Hanna says poster is a ‘disgrace’.
DUP Councillor Glynn Hanna said: “This is disgraceful. The poster should not have been put up.
“This whole issue of the sea border and the NI Protocol needs to be settled in the courts peacefully.
“This displaying of such a poster should never have happened.
“There is no place for such a position in our society. This must go through the democratic process and be settled peacefully. That is the only way.”
McKee Says Gun Has No Place In Resolution of the NI Protocol.
Following the complaint from Sinn Féin to the police about the posters, UUP Councillor Harold McKee also condemned the erection of the posters in Kilkeel. Cllr McKee said that Unionists have deplored the poster and are deeply disappointed at the threatening image of a black balaclava and a handgun.
“Hundreds of posters have been put up in Northern Ireland challenging the sea border and the NI Protocol, but this poster is quite sinister. There is no need for any violence on this issue.
“These people whoever they are have not grown up with the Troubles and don’t know what it is like to carry a coffin. They have not grown up in the real world.
“This issue will have to be settled peacefully.”
