Morning View: Sinn Fein distortions on First Minister keep its grievance machine at full tilt

Sinn Fein held its annual conference over the weekend and used the platform to claim that the DUP wasn't prepared to accept a nationalist first minister.

This was a dishonest, scurrilous message for a few reasons.

Firstly, it implied that unionists find Sinn Fein and their representatives hard to palate simply because they are nationalists. This is transparent nonsense.

Many people are understandably horrified that a political movement that has been linked closely to the IRA, and associated with a campaign of terror aimed largely against them, is now the largest party.

It was also an attempt to play down the deep opposition of all pro-Union politicians to the NI Protocol.

In the run up to the May election, the DUP made it clear that it would not participate in an executive until the issues with the Irish Sea border were resolved. That position was articulated at a time when the party still hoped to retain the FM's post.

In March, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson told a meeting in Crossgar, "I am not prepared to do that if the … government is not prepared to do the right thing and protect Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom."

Latterly, the party has stated explicitly that it would take its executive seats alongside a SF first minister if NI's place in the UK internal market is repaired. Indeed that position has – understandably – made some unionists exceptionally uncomfortable and attracted strong criticism from Jim Allister’s TUV.

The misrepresentations that we've seen from republicans rely on a familiar formula of ignoring what unionists said and implying that they can be motivated only by bad faith, rather than having their own legitimate aims and interests.

It's a tactic aimed at keeping the Sinn Fein grievance machine working a full tilt.