Vote Peggy O'Hara

First of all I want to thank everyone for coming here today to support the launch of my election campaign. I want to thank my supporters in the various groups represented beside me here on this platform. I have been getting huge offers of support and solidarity. I believe that people are finally awakening to what is happening. If elected I will not be entering Stormont. I will not be taking a seat in this bastion of unionist misrule. The only thing that should happen in Stormont is it’s downfall. Anyone here remember the old republican slogan “SMASH STORMONT!”. Well that’s what I believe should happen. Stormont and the rotten northern state cannot be reformed.



I have decided to stand in this election because when I think about my son Patsy and how he was burned and brutalised by the RUC. I don’t want republicans to accept this force. They weren’t acceptable in years gone by and they aren’t acceptable now. Do you realise that the 90% of the membership of the PSNI were formally members of the RUC. The PSNI is the old RUC and nothing has changed. But I am also standing on a republican platform. I want to see an end to British misrule in our country. I want to see Ireland united. I want to see the people of Ireland united and they cannot be united under the crown.



One thing that I have learned over the years is Republicans should never ever trust the British to deliver on their promises. I should know, after all my son Patsy would be alive today if the British had kept to their side of the deal that brought to an end the 1980 hungerstrike. Britain can not and Britain will not provide a fair, open and accountable policing and justice system in this country because it’s not in their interests. They have no right to do so anyway as they are an illegal occupying force in Ireland.



I believe that the policing debate is a red herring, a side show and a distraction. The main issue is the illegal British involvement in our country. There is no such thing as British “justice”. They don’t know the meaning of the word. I am all for peace but this peace process is one-sided and embarrassing. Sinn Fein have accepted and endorsed a partitionist settlement and have given their support to the RUC who have committed so many crimes against our people. That cannot be denied or spun to mean something that it isn’t. But I know one thing, my son Patsy, and other brave republicans went to their deaths in the belief that they were fighting to get the British establishment out of Ireland once and for all. If they had known then that the struggle would end in support for the RUC then they would not have felt it worthwhile putting their lives on the line. Can anyone say any different?



I want decent policing and I stand for a peaceful solution to our problems. On the 7th March I ask you to consider voting for me and to show your support for what I am standing for, in a non-violent and political way. I believe that this process has weakened and fractured republicanism. I want to see a united, confident and strong republican family in the coming years.