I simply will not allow Northern Ireland to become, or be viewed, as a failed part of the United Kingdom

Doug Beattie is the Leader of the Ulster Unionist Party  As we move into the second week of September and Westminster have a week under their belt, following recess, the problems facing Northern Ireland mount. Education is facing major problems, our health and social care lurches from crisis to crisis and the Police Service of Northern Ireland is in turmoil. Politicians must take their fair share of responsibility for the mess we find ourselves in. In just one month the …

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As the anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement approaches, the immediate outlook is uncertain. But reform is in the air

As the Great Anniversary approaches, unionist opinion in its supporting  press is in turmoil over whether or when to return to the Assembly. Worryingly there is talk of being resigned to loyalist violence in the event of a border poll.    Opinion is tilting against accepting the Windsor Framework. Its gaps and deficiencies are forensically taken apart in the Belfast Telegraph by Sam McBride.  In the Newsletter, the voice of sceptical unionism, the editor Ben Lowry comes down against the Framework …

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It’s all over bar the shouting?

gray concrete castle at daytime

The political agenda in the UK seems to be moving on. The verdicts are in. Sunak is being praised for his political adroitness. Boris has been wrong-footed and even the perennially churlish Lord Frost has been muttering about aspects of the deal begin helpful. The Windsor Framework Agreement (hereinafter referred to as the WFA) is being hailed as the harbinger of a reset in relations between the UK and EU more generally. A sort of GFA for the UK and …

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“There comes a time to seal the deal”: a DUP member’s take on the Windsor Framework…

black metal fence in front of mansion

Matthew Allen is a DUP member from Lagan Valley ‘THIS AGREEMENT IS ABOUT YOUR FUTURE.’ That was the message on the 1998 Belfast Agreement – delivered en masse to Northern Ireland homes, my parents’ and grandparents’ included, that Spring. I was born in October the year after the vote: a peace baby. Though there will be no ’98-style plebiscite on the Windsor Framework, I still feel a civic obligation to digest it and offer some thoughts. Almost everyone who voted …

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The claim that Sunak is overselling is oversold

If you object to any trace of the EU in Northern Ireland future affairs, look away now. Even Lord Frost who delivered the discredited Protocol isn’t quite with you. Sunak’s deal will help he admits “but it’s a bitter pill to swallow”. Whereas Sunak stresses NI ‘s recovery of UK sovereignty, Frost points out reasonably  that the   deal is  so called because it is indeed a framework  for applying EU law We are told that 1700 pages of EU law …

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The DUP are struggling to find reasons of principle for continuing their Assembly boycott

Photo; The Irish Sea  Many unionists are doing what unionists do, poring over a legal text. Not all of them may be clear in their own minds why they’re doing so. Looking for fresh evidence of betrayal or points that need improving?  For one, Sam McBride has delivered a glass half empty exposure of Rishi Sunak’s bouncy oversell.   The border in the Irish Sea may have been replaced by the green channel but it is alive and well in the …

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