Figures collated by Unionist Voice show that the Alliance Party are more than three-times as likely to issue statements attacking Unionism, than they are to issue any kind of criticism of the nationalist community.
The astonishing figures, taken from the Alliance Party’s own website, provide a clear demonstration of the nationalist ethos of the party.
In recent months the Alliance Party have issued two joint pan-nationalist statements with Sinn Fein and the SDLP, and also joined with Sinn Fein in supporting all of their political demands for re-entering the Northern Ireland Executive. This includes fully fledged support for an Irish Language Act and legacy inquest funding.
The figures show that in instances that the Alliance Party issue a statement critical of Sinn Fein, in the vast majority of cases it contains a caveat of an equal- or even greater- attack on the DUP within the same statement.
The Alliance Party are also twice as likely to issue statements relating to instances of crime within the unionist community, as they there in relation to criminal incidents in the nationalist community.
In relation to cultural expression the Alliance Party focus almost solely on the unionist community with little or no criticism of the nationalist community.
So far in 2018 the Alliance Party have issued 37 statements which are critical of unionism and/or the British Government. They have issued 10 statements critical of nationalism, 5 of which were also used to simultaneously attack the DUP.
In the 2017 calendar year the Alliance Party issued 56 statements attacking Unionism, these included statements supporting Sinn Fein’s demands for an Irish Language Act, and only 18 statements critical of nationalism. Of these 18 statements 8 simultaneously targeted the DUP, 6 were explicit criticism of anti-SF dissident republicans and only 4 statements were directly criticising Sinn Fein.