Editorial: The divisions in unionism are sad but hard to avoid at this time given the irreconcilable range of views

The Reform UK speakers got a rapturous reception at Saturday’s TUV conference.

The party leader Richard Tice addressed delegates at the event in Kells, after Jim Allister had announced a pact with the party. The deputy leader of Reform UK, Ben Habib, also spoke to enthusiastic applause, now being well known with unionism as a supporter of its cause, particularly in opposition to the Irish Sea border.

It was telling that both speakers got applause and shouts of approval from TUV members not just for their criticism of the frontier, but for their attacks on mass immigration and the rise of ‘woke’ extremism, in which some foolish Westminster politicians refuse to define a woman. Thus the TUV-Reform tie-up is timely not just in relation to the border, but in giving a voice to people across NI who are fed up with barmy, ultra-liberal politics.

Jim Allister got thunderous approval when he spoke in defence of Israel. TUV delegates, like people in many nations, and indeed like many DUP and UUP members, are fed up with weak political responses to loose borders, to extremist social policies, to the rise of Islamism, to attacks on patriotism, to needless guilt over the histories of western civilisation, and to stifling taxes and pampered employment laws that make it hard for managers to manage and small businesses to rival the public sector.

The big issues for unionists, however, remain the fact that we now have a first minister who says IRA terror was unavoidable, and the Irish Sea border.

It is sad to see unionist division when unionists need as many votes as possible, but a single unionist movement is not feasible just now when unionism has so many shades. A division into two would be ideal. Meanwhile, with the DUP leadership having said that the internal UK trade border is gone, it is inevitable that there will be a movement that says it hasn’t and opposes that border.