Gerry's the Trojan One ... Shinners' Best Strategy

By AM Saturday, December 13, 2014

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John Coulter with his regular Irish Daily Star column. It appeared in Newshound.

Sinn Féin must continue with its policy of using Trojan Horses if it is to become the Irish king-maker by the centenary of the Rising in 2016.

In ancient mythology, the Trojan Horse was the cunning plan which the Greeks used to break into the heavily defended city of Troy and capture it from the inside.

Unionists really have their Orange knickers in a real twist over Shinner boss Gerry Adams' comments on the use of equality as a political Trojan Horse to achieve the party's final goal.

This is no big secret. What is surprising is that Unionism and the British have, time after time, allowed Sinn Féin to give them a whole stable of Trojan Horses since the late 1960s.

Basically, Unionists fall for the republican Trojan Horse at every jump! Their jibes at Adams' so-called republican mask slipping is a pathetic attempt to defect attention away from the reality that the Shinners have been duping Unionists for decades.

Look at what republicans have achieved using the Trojan Horse tactic.

After the disastrous IRA Border campaign of 1956-62, republicans infiltrated the Civil Rights Movement to give the Provos a terror springboard across the whole of the North and not just the border counties.

Republicans persuaded the Brits to scrap the B Specials militia, the Ulster Defence Regiment, the RUC, and axe the original Stormont Parliament, effectively leaving Unionists powerless.

The backbone of Unionist rule in the North for generations was the Protestant Marching Orders, especially the Orange.

That Trojan Horse was the network of republican-dominated nationalist residents' groups objecting to traditional parades.

That succeeded – as at Drumcree – in driving a wedge between the Orders and the Protestant middle class who abhorred the violence now associated with such contentious marches.

Now a second Trojan Horse has been delivered to the Unionist stable – objecting to loyalist band parades, such as Rasharkin in Co Antrim.

The aim of this ploy is to drive another wedge between working class Protestants, and the police and Parades Commission.

The ultimate aim of the Sinn Féin stable of Trojan Horses is not about securing equality for republicans, but about isolating Unionism politically, socially and culturally.

The worst thing Sinn Féin can do is to abandon the concept of using political Trojan Horses now that Unionists have worked out how republicans have always stayed several steps ahead of them for decades.

In the Republic, Sinn Féin must use the Trojan Horse of its anti-austerity stance to convince voters the party should be a coalition partner in the next Dail.

And in the North, it must continue to encourage more draft-dodgers into its ranks. These are young republicans who have never served an apprenticeship in the IRA.

This Trojan Horse enabled Sinn Féin to heavily eat into the SDLP's traditional middle class Catholic vote.

But yet another Trojan Horse is needed here – to ensure middle class nationalists do not abandon the Stoops completely and set up a new moderate party.

Yet more Trojan Horses which the Shinners need to urgently create are one to combat the threat from the dissident republican movement, given the dire warnings coming from the police.

Sinn Féin can take a giant leap towards Irish unity if it ditches abstentionism at Westminster and becomes part of a coalition Government with Labour boss Ed Miliband.

This Trojan Horse is used to fool republican hardliners within Sinn Féin ranks that the party has not joined the British Establishment, but taking Commons seats is part of a clever plan.

As for Trojan Horses from Unionism, there's no chance. Unionism's stable is full of blind donkeys ready for the political knackers yard!