Letter: The Windsor Framework gives unionists a chance to get off the back foot

Some will think this glib, but I believe Rishi Sunak's deal could prove to be transformative.

The next few days could cause much soul-searching in unionism. Unionism should never be about managing decline. This deal offers a chance to get off the back foot and start setting some agendas.

We have drifted into pessimism in UK politics, where decline is seen as inevitable, when what we need is vigilance, strategy, courage, and action. Some, for example, say devolution will lead inevitably to Scottish independence. But look at the absurd, unattractive, squabbling SNP now. Separation can be avoided.

In Northern Ireland many trends are said to presage an all-Ireland republic ; demographics, devolution, Brexit, the protocol tussle, this effective replacement of the protocol. But there is nothing inevitable about an all-Ireland republic. The more you think about it, the more problematic it becomes, especially if we can get our act together.

This new deal seems to offer just that. Some sovereignty over NI is still granted to the EU, but only a fraction of that held by Westminster. In exchange, we get real benefits and help out of the hole that we, so unwisely, dug for ourselves.

The more worrying trend, by far, is that north/south trade volumes will increase. So, we should ensure that NI/GB trade increases too. The ‘green lane’ for Great Britain goods is a start. More UK government encouragement of GB commercial interest in NI is the next, vital step, a bargaining area for the DUP, perhaps ?

We can use this new deal with Brussels to regain and build on the stability lost in 2016, in a world that is now far more terrifying than seven years ago.

President Obama's repackaging of Martin Luther King's line that "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice" is a difficult one. There is no certainty that the good guys will win.

In order to do so they must pull up their sleeves and start a confident, positive, new engagement.

John Gemmell, Wem, Shropshire