Debate contribution: UK COVID-19 Inquiry Report

Debate contribution by Mr Jon Burrows on 24 November 2025.

MLA: Mr Jon Burrows
Party at the time: Ulster Unionist Party
Date: 24 November 2025
Type: Debate contribution
Business: Matter of the Day
Heading: UK COVID-19 Inquiry Report
Assembly identifier: Official Report component 5253870

Text

COVID was, in many ways, a moment of truth for many in our political establishment, and the truth was that many of our political leaders were not up to the challenge. I will turn to the Bobby Storey funeral in a moment. First, I extend my sympathy to all those who lost loved ones during the pandemic and all those who never got a chance to say goodbye and who visited their loved ones in care homes through a glass window because they abided by the rules that were set down by people in this place.
Then we had the flagrant breach of those rules by Sinn Féin. Yes, Baroness Hallett's report raised issues of competency and decision-making, but what stood out in Sinn Féin's misconduct was that it was a predetermined, pre-planned, calculated, flagrant breach of the rule of law. It was an affront to everybody who did the right thing.
The show of strength for Bobby Storey's funeral revealed what is wrong with the rule of law in Northern Ireland: the average citizen has to follow the rules on when they see, or do not see, their granny or granda, but, when it comes to a terrorist, different rules apply. That was a day of shame for Sinn Féin. There was much talk about the apology of the now First Minister for all. It took 1,414 days to apologise — that is not an apology at all — and Sinn Féin still boycotts 'The Nolan Show', because the BBC had the temerity to expose its duplicity. That is not genuine remorse. We focus on the Bobby Storey funeral, but there is a second chapter to Sinn Féin's conduct around COVID. That concerns 5 February 2021, when two young constables, one Protestant and one Catholic, had the temerity to try to give a ticket to a group of people who were breaching the COVID regulations. The result, after the constables were jostled and abused, was that Sinn Féin, at a senior level, interfered with policing. It demanded that a prisoner be released from the back of a police car. It petitioned the Chief Constable and threatened him until he suspended an innocent officer. I was proud to be part of the campaign to exonerate that police officer. Sinn Féin caused not only a crisis in confidence around the Bobby Storey funeral but a crisis in policing around its politicisation on the Ormeau Road. It has never apologised for that, but I know the truth, because I saw the minutes: I saw the disclosure. Yes, there are real lessons on competence, integrity and decision-making that we can learn from the report, but, when it comes to predetermined immorality, Sinn Féin showed its true colours, and it should still make a heartfelt apology for the damage that it did to this country during COVID.

473 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Qualifying Sectarianism, hate crime and community relations

Jev’s structured answers met every documented threshold for a qualifying culture-war activity.

Overall probability that the activity is being used to promote, exploit or escalate an identity-based controversy: 0.71 (qualifying needs at least 0.70; at or below 0.30 is not qualifying).
Criteria met: Dog-whistle messaging (0.65).
The text adopts the identity-based framing in its own voice (0.69).
Subject area: Sectarianism, hate crime and community relations.
All qualifying thresholds were met.

This is an AI-generated assessment of the text, made against published criteria. It is not a finding of fact about the MLA or their intentions. The Assembly record itself is the fact.

Jev’s structured answers

Probability that each statement is true of this text (0 = no, 1 = yes). A criterion counts as met at 0.60 or above.
Question	Probability	Met?
Identity framing	0.45	No
Sectarian or communal antagonism	0.24	No
Cultural grievance politics	0.12	No
Dog-whistle messaging	0.65	Yes
Controversy escalation	0.34	No
Legitimate policy scrutiny	0.19	No
Overall judgement	0.71	Above qualifying threshold

Context and attribution (stance)
Option	Probability
No identity-based framing	0.19
Reports or questions it	0.00
Criticises or condemns it	0.12
Adopts it (chosen)	0.69

Subject area (top five)
Subject	Probability
Sectarianism, hate crime and community relations	0.50
Legacy of the Troubles, victims and paramilitarism	0.36
Religion and belief (including people of no religion), churches, faith communities and religious prejudice (including antisemitism and anti-Muslim prejudice)	0.13
Parades, bonfires and commemorations	0.01
No identity-related subject	0.00

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 13:48 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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