As the Portadown Orange Lodge, with the aid of Carla and Jonathan, and 167, tried to take us back 28 years, the response from Sinn Féin was predictable. They failed to take the high road, as Michell Obama put it, “When they go low, we go high”, and ended up in the political sewer with “lots of losers” and the entire unionist establishment, who seemed to have aligned themselves with the intellectual heavyweights such as Bryson and Allister. To be fair, Michell and Mary Lou’s attendance at the protest probably stopped some of the hot heads on their side and grumpy Brendan from turning the occasion into a bygone spectacle.
Like many others, I was stunned by the court decision to let the 35 Orangemen march down Garvaghy Rd. Here is the rub: the protesters clearly did not agree with the court’s decision, however, the Court of Appeal, Chief Justice Siobhan Keegan, said the Belfast High Court judge who granted an injunction against the march had “unfortunately erred in law”. What does ” err in law ” mean? It means a judge, court, or legal official made a mistake in how they understood, interpreted, or applied legal rules during a case. We are a nation of laws, said John Adams, in which case, in a democracy, you can’t pick and choose which laws you want to break and which ones you abide by. By the way, the Parades Commission was set up under the Good Friday Agreement and, as far as I can remember, all parties signed up to it. Claire Hanna, not to be outdone by Michell, attended the protest based on some obscure ECHR provision that a spontaneous protest was a human right. Typical SDLP, coming up the rear.
Justice Smyth had granted an interim injunction blocking the parade purely on the basis that the long-running dispute had the “potential to escalate”. The Court of Appeal said that the courts cannot simply substitute their own views for those of an independent public body. In this case, this refers to the relic called the Parades Commission. The parasites that inhabit the Commission, including the Chief Executive and all members of the Commission, should be sacked without delay. Come on, Chris, you can do this under a provision in the 1998 Public Procession(Northern Ireland ) Act which allows members to be removed because they are unable or unfit to discharge their functions. Well, on reflection, let them stay on until the end of the year, as I believe they are all resigning, but do get rid of the Chief Executive.
If I were advising Sinn Féin, I would have had the Garvaghy Rd lined with protesters with placards saying, “Lots of Losers”, with their backs to the 35 God-fearing and love thy neighbour Orangemen marching down the road and at the end of the road placards saying” Are you happy now, boys?”. This is called going high, and it would have had other nations in the UK watching this farce and singing “We don’t want you as part of the union”. In addition, it may have pushed moderate Unionists into the arms of the “all things to all people” Alliance Party. Though something tells me that Brendan would not have supported such a deft political tactic. My suggestion is on the basis that the Orange agreed that this was the last time that they would ask the stupid Parades Commission for permission to walk down Garvaghy Rd.
Suneil Sharma
2nd October 2026
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