Letter: No party has a mandate from the unionist electorate to resume power sharing while the Irish Sea Border is in place

Many commentators, opponents and perhaps some government ministers hoped or even expected the DUP to be electorally punished for its stand over the protocol.

Despite the attempts to demonise the DUP / TUV position the council elections clearly show that while not happy most unionist voters recognise the refusal to form an executive as a necessary evil. I feel the Ulster Unionist Party missed a great opportunity to position themselves as the only main segment of unionism that warned against Brexit but still throwing their lot in with the DUP / TUV in fighting the Irish Sea Border. The DUP didn’t need them to collapse the executive but as the main unionist signatory to the Good Friday Agreement (GFA) I believe their support for the boycott would have carried great symbolic value and greatly strengthened the unionist position in arguing that the current arrangement was incompatible with the GFA conditions of power sharing.

Instead giving an impression to the government that they might be able to persuade enough unionists to accept an internal UK border for sake of making NI work or because of pressing economic issues was always going to lead to the government’s deciding its easier to shaft unionists than republicans.

As it is it seems clear to me that no party has a mandate from the unionist electorate to resume power sharing while the Irish Sea Border is in place. If unionists are to resume government without a clear improvement in Northern Ireland’s constitutional position then I believe unionists must hold out for assembly elections so that they can seek a mandate to do so having first made their case.

This is only fair to unionist voters. No matter how much people want to get back to government there is just no avoiding the fact that the protocol is incompatible with Union. The UK government needs to accept this and implement an interim period of direct rule until new arrangements can be agreed.

Mr R G McDowell, Belfast BT5