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<\/p>\nThe First Minister claimed people had to “move on” after he was questioned about Sinn Fein’s historic links to the Provisional IRA.<\/p>\n
10:44, 18 May 2026Updated 10:52, 18 May 2026<\/p>\n
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140 Scots soldiers were killed during the Troubles(Image: Charles McQuillan)<\/p>\n
Families whose relatives were murdered by the IRA are to stage a protest outside the Scottish Parliament this week to demand John Swinney apologises for his comments about Sinn Fein<\/a>.<\/p>\n The First Minister has repeatedly talked-up his ambition for the SNP to work more closely with the Irish republican party in order to “change the dynamics of the United Kingdom”.<\/p>\n It comes as the devolved governments in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland all have nationalist first ministers<\/a> for the first time after elections on May 7.<\/p>\n Questioned last week about Sinn Fein’s historical ties with the Provisional IRA, Swinney claimed “people have got to move on” from the era of the Troubles, which saw 140 Scottish soldiers killed in Northern Ireland.<\/p>\n Sinn Fein is the largest party at Stormont and shares power with the Democratic Unionist Party. Gerry Adams, a former long-serving president of the party, has repeatedly denied being a senior IRA commander during the Troubles.<\/p>\n Military veterans of the conflict and bereaved family representatives will this week join with the South East Fermanagh Foundation (SEFF) victims and survivors support organisation outside Holyrood to “register opposition and concern following recent remarks made by Scotland\u2019s First Minister”.<\/p>\n SEFF\u2019s director Kenny Donaldson told the Mail<\/a>: “Over the last week, we have heard directly from many former Scottish soldiers and from families who had loved ones murdered as a consequence of the Troubles, murdered through the actions of Provisional IRA terrorism, and they are deeply hurt and insulted by what the SNP leader John Swinney has stated.<\/p>\n “Mr Swinney has grossly underestimated the damage his remarks have made, in the short term but also potentially in the medium term<\/p>\n “\u2018How does the SNP leader believe his representatives will be received when they stand at cenotaphs across Scotland at Armistice? To flippantly suggest that the horrors of the Troubles need to be moved on from illustrates his gross naivety on these issues.”<\/p>\n READ MORE: SNP Government condemns ‘disgraceful scenes of violence’ in Glasgow following Celtic title victory<\/a>READ MORE: M8 motorway demolition in Glasgow could take inspiration from ‘New York and San Fransisco’<\/a><\/p>\n Alex Blair, whose brother Lance Corporal Donald Blair died in a bomb attack in Warrenpoint in 1979, described the SNP leader\u2019s comments as “deeply hurtful” and demanded a public apology.<\/p>\n He said his family still live with the trauma of Donald\u2019s death every single day.<\/p>\n Blair said: “My mother died virtually three years to the day after it. John Swinney has got three children. If one of them came back in a box in bits and pieces, would he move on?<\/p>\n “You don\u2019t need to think of that answer, so why is he asking us to do it?”<\/p>\n Swinney said last week: “If you had said to me in 1986\u2026 that Northern Ireland would be able to deliver the Good Friday Agreement, signed off by Ian Paisley as the leader of the Democratic Unionist Party and Gerry Adams as the President of Sinn Fein, supported by the British and Irish [governments], I would have been pretty sceptical about that, but it happened.<\/p>\n “So the world’s moved on and I know my dialogue with Sinn Fein caused media consternation in Scotland, but I really do think people have got to move on.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The First Minister claimed people had to “move on” after he was questioned about Sinn Fein’s historic links…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40326,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[3495,3930,3498,3497,9049,3934,5,6],"class_list":["post-40325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-uk","tag-john-swinney","tag-northern-ireland","tag-scottish-government","tag-scottish-national-party","tag-sinn-fein","tag-snp","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116599931917902170","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40325\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}