Dissidents tell Adams they are ‘not going anywhere’ as posters are pasted across west Belfast

A SINISTER message to former Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams was plastered across his former constituency of west Belfast yesterday.

A number of dissident posters appeared, signed by “the IRA”, which read: “We are not going anywhere Gerry. 32 or nothing.”

The posters (right) seem to be a retort to a recent interview during which Mr Adams told dissident republican groups to “go away”.

In the interview with the BBC’s Newsnight programme, he said: “There is no community support for a return to conflict anywhere.

“They [the New IRA] may have the ability to carry individual actions but all thinking republicans are committed to peaceful, democratic means. “The IRA is gone.”

Asked what he would say to dissi- dent republican leaders, he said: “Go away.” It is understood the posters have also been put up in Ardoyne in north Belfast and on the Falls Road, close to Sinn Fein headquarters.

Earlier this week a spokesperson for Saoradh, which is believed to speak for the ‘new IRA’, spoke of their hopes that Brexit will “break up the British state” and “stoke the fires of resistance against British rule in Ireland”.

Paul Duffy from Saoradh was asked on Newsnight to respond to the statement by Mr Adams, to which he said: “We have no intention of going home, Gerry.”

The police assessment of the level of threat from dissident republicans remains severe.

A Sinn Fein spokesperson told the Belfast Telegraph: “Sinn Fein has been clear, there is no place for armed groups in our society.

“They should go away and leave the stage.”