Letter: Irish language signs row is distracting from the real problem - the Windsor Framework

This school of thought has long roots and we might link it to the old notion of killing home rule with kindness from the 1800s.

This strategy can never work, however, in the midst of a constitutional crisis. The problem with this strategy is that unionism is so wounded by the Irish Sea border that its leaders have no political capital to invest in showing generosity around the kind of issues that might help content non-unionists with an Irish identity.

We see this around issues to do with the Irish language and Casement Park.

Unionists need to be seen to block things because their own grassroots are so demoralised, but does this really fit with their wider strategy of making NI work?

Irish is likely to be a feature of NI simply because it seems to be culturally important to such a large proportion of NI’s present population.

Things like Irish language signs may make Northern Ireland seem like a foreign country for some unionists but it is actually a distraction from our real problem.

It is the Windsor Framework actually making Northern Ireland a foreign country that is unionism’s real problem.

It is the presence of foreign law in Northern Ireland not a foreign language that is the real threat to British identity.

I worry that unionism’s presence in the executive is providing legitimacy and permanency to an arrangement that can take us nowhere but Irish unification.

I would happily compromise on the Irish language in Northern Ireland if in exchange NI’s position was restored within the UK and our second-class citizenship removed.

I don’t see what incentive the two governments have to address these issues when we have already complied with their desire to see us operate the Stormont institutions.

R G McDowell, Belfast BT5