How do they think this sort of language is received?!?
What sort of statement did you expect them to make, the council, ACL and Higgs have all been putting the boot into SISU for the last couple of days why wouldn't they take a shot back?
The chap who posts on here from Higgs was interview by the Free Radio today and said independent arbitration wasn't an option as far as they were concerned. That seems a very odd stance to take to me. Look at the possible outcomes:
1) arbitrators agree with ACL and SISU have to pay up. you may argue that if they don't like the result they won't pay but if the findings of the arbitrator were made public you would imagine any support for SISU would disappear.
2) arbitrators pitch something between what ACL want and SISU want. not really a victory for either side but as above if SISU didn't follow through with that agreement they would lose the majority of their support.
3) arbitrators agree with SISU. Obviously SISU would agree with that and would then pay up, if they didn't they would not have any comeback having got their own way.
The only reason I can see for Higgs not wanting to go to arbitration is that you think you will lose. As above I don't see any kind of 'SISU wouldn't abide by it' as a valid reason to turn it down as it would see a huge shift in public support towards ACL.