‘DUP will reap what they sow… the party’s finished’, says founding father Rev Ivan Foster

https://www.sundayworld.com/news/northern-ireland-news/dup-will-reap-what-they-sow-the-partys-finished-says-founding-father-rev-ivan-foster/a1407305297.html

‘DUP will reap what they sow… the party’s finished’, says founding father Rev Ivan Foster

“We are heading for a united Ireland and there’s no doubt about that”

A founding father of the DUP has said he believes the party is finished.
The Reverend Ivan Foster spoke out after Sir Jeffrey Donaldson stepped down as DUP leader when it emerged he was facing historic sex charges.

The Rev Foster – a retired Free Presbyterian minister – says the public image of a patched-up and united party is a mirage.

He insisted: “It’s downright impossible for DUP politicians to square the circle currently surrounding it.”

And he claimed: “From a human point of view, these people are so bloated in their pride, they believe they can pull off anything.

“These people were just full of their own importance. The thing about the DUP today, they think they can turn things around. But I don’t think they can.

“They will reap what they sow. The party’s finished.”

The 81-year-old is convinced that rather than helping save the Union, the DUP is failing to stop Northern Ireland move closer to a united Ireland.

“We are heading for a united Ireland and there’s no doubt about that,” he said.

The Rev Foster was previously an editor with Ulster Television before taking up the cloth.

He added: “The other night I was watching the news on TV and first item on the agenda was the appointment of a new Taoiseach in the Republic. That’s just one example of what’s happening.

“We are being subtly prepared for unity. We are drifting there, of that there is no doubt.”

And he believes the British establishment are conditioning the public of Northern Ireland for a change of status regarding their position as UK citizens.

He says the British Secret Service exercises much more control over Northern Ireland than is perceived by the general public.

“I have often said to anyone willing to listen to me, that the British government ‘machinery’ is the most subtle, the most deceitful, that ever has been.

“It has been in operation longer than the Roman Empire, the Grecian Empire, the Babylonian Empire and the Persian Empire.

“The Americans are second league in comparison to the treachery of the British government in this regard.

“Those smiling Englishmen with their double-barrelled names and their sirs and their lords, they could teach the devil how to be deceitful.”

He added: “There is an unfolding story here and when it emerges, people will find it hard to believe. But the fate of the DUP is sealed.”

And he said he didn’t believe the new show of unity between interim party leader Gavin Robinson and party rivals who voted against the ‘Donaldson Deal’, including Ian Paisley.

Until last week, it appeared both DUP factions were poles apart. Many activists opposed to the deal accused Sir Jeffrey of “rushing it through”.

The retired clergyman – who served in a previous administration at Stormont – is on record as saying he converted to Free Presbyterianism after hearing the late Rev Ian Paisley preach in a corrugated tin church on Belfast’s Ravenhill Road in the early 1960s.

Together they were arrested and fined for public order offences following a public protest against what they claimed was an ecumenist trend in other churches.

And when they refused to pay their fines, a magistrate sent them both to prison for six months.

Following the signing of the Anglo-Irish Agreement in November 1985, Ivan Foster was one of three founding members of Ulster Resistance, a paramilitary group which paraded in uniform.

In an interview with the Sunday World, Rev Foster revealed he later lined up the men under his command and told them: “Go back to your wives and families – this man (Ian Paisley) isn’t serious.”