I must have been under a '˜delusion' that it was a UK-wide vote on EU

I want to thank Margaret Ritchie (July 21) and her SDLP, Sinn Fein and Alliance colleagues for attempting to keep Northern Ireland within the European Union.

By The Newsroom

Published 24th Jul 2016, 16:10 BST

Updated 25th Aug 2016, 17:07 BST

I had been labouring under the impression that, along with 44% of people here, I voted to for the UK to leave.

I thought 51% of the people in the constituency where I live voted for the UK to leave.

I had thought that the mechanism for declaring results which gave us a ‘Northern Ireland result’ was immaterial when the electorate was the whole of the United Kingdom.

It appears I was suffering from some sort of democratic delusion by believing that my vote, and the result, would be respected and that politicians wouldn’t try and speak for me on the basis that some people didn’t vote the same way as I did.

Silly me.

Neil Wilson, East Belfast