It is time for plain speaking on the changes that unionism needs

1. If the Ulster Unionist Party want to survive they need to confront the haemorrhaging of their vote to Alliance, which is not a unionist party.

2. The DUP need to remove Arlene Foster and the rest of the liberal clique that have moved the party to the mirror image of Alliance. Their whole platform was wrong. Money was their message not morals.

3. The DUP need to reenergise their core vote which has traditionally been the evangelical Protestant. They have been losing this section of community in huge numbers because of their compromise on moral issues.

4. The Protestant and unionist community are without a figure who can stir the heart with real principles. Arlene doesn’t fit the bill.

5. The unionists need to grasp the nettle of republicanism which has corrupted every institution while pursuing their revisionist portrayal of their terrorist campaign.

The DUP have not stood against republicanism as they ought. Any future leader must make that a central priority.

Without these changes they will cease to represent the evangelical Protestant and unionist community.

Rev E T Kirkland, Ballyclare