BREAKING | Northern Ireland’s Mark Allen has confessed that he is ‘in a bad place at the minute’ and is considering retiring from snooker following a defeat to Jordan Brown in the Northern Ireland Open. belfasttelegraph.co.uk/sport… belfasttelegraph.co.uk/sport…

Jamie, of all the unbelievably shameful things you’ve shared recently, this has to be one of the most, if not the most extraordinary and deeply offensive. On so many levels You’ve actually shared an Orange Order poster that takes Martin Niemöller’s famous First They Came warning about Nazi persecution and twists it into a tale of unionist victimhood. Do you, or indeed the senior figures within unionism and loyalism, have any appreciation of how disgusting and grotesque that comparison is? I would really be keen to see if anyone has any balls to address this absolute disgusting post. Niemöller was warning about the systematic persecution and of course the fecking murder of people under Nazi Germany. Yet here we have the B Specials, UDR, RUC and Orange Order portrayed as though they were victims of some comparable campaign of persecution. The B Specials were disbanded amid serious findings about sectarian discrimination. The UDR was amalgamated into the Royal Irish Regiment. The RUC was replaced following the Good Friday Agreement and the demand for policing reform across NI And the Orange Order? Still marching, still exercising its rights and still insisting on parading through a community that has objected for decades. What makes this particularly offensive is the complete absence of nationalist suffering from this rewriting of history. No mention of discrimination, the civil rights movement or the experiences of Catholics under the very institutions now being portrayed as victims. And then you accompany it with a warning about appeasing the aggressor. Who exactly is the aggressor here ? The Catholic demanding equality? The nationalist seeking fair treatment? The family wanting accountable policing? Or the Garvaghy Road resident asking for their community’s wishes to be respected? I’d genuinely like to hear senior unionist and loyalist representatives explain whether they consider this an appropriate use of a warning about Nazi persecution and if they have the balls to stand up and clarify that this individual and indeed this photo is actually speaking for you? Because the underlying message is seriously disturbing, that reforming institutions, ending discrimination and sharing power somehow constitute the persecution of unionism akin to that of nazi Germany Nobody is coming for Protestant identity, religion or culture. Equality isn’t persecution, and losing exclusive privileges isn’t oppression. To appropriate the suffering of Nazi victims to suggest otherwise is an extraordinary distortion of history. And the fact that this is being circulated during the current climate without apparent embarrassment should concern anyone genuinely interested in reconciliation, because this is a step too far and reprehensible.

@duponline @PhillipBrett21 @JimAllister @JonBurrowsMLA @carlalockhart @GRobinsonDUP youtube.com/watch?v=WMPW9ImF…