As an Englishman I lost confidence in the ‘mainland’ British many years ago

(His article can be read here)

I am afraid that the Tories have seldom spoken up for the Union when it mattered.

It needs courage to speak up and a great price politically usually has to be paid for such courage.

The southern unionists in Trinity College Dublin were abandoned and betrayed by the Tories in December 1920 and our status as the Irish equal of the great English universities of Oxford and Cambridge undermined and compromised.

At the time of writing we are 155= in the World University rankings (THES) as Oxford stands at 1 and Cambridge 6.

In the light of the history of Northern Ireland since 1969 (to go back no further in history) no one can be surprised by the betrayals of Theresa May and Boris Johnson since the European Referendum of June 23 2016 although the 10 DUP MPs were useful idiots to prop up Theresa May’s disastrous government after the unnecessary 2017 general election.

The Tories have never regarded Ulster Unionists as equals of the ‘mainland’ British so-called in Finchley or Uxbridge or anywhere else.

The Tories imagine that you will rest content with occasional words of reassurance and the odd peerage.

Now with a border envisaged in the Irish Sea the Union is in mortal danger.

We shall now see how much the Union really matters to the ‘mainland’ British.

As an Englishman I lost confidence in the ‘mainland’ British many years ago.

Dr Gerald Morgan, Fellow Trinity College Dublin

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