Letter: Unionists have indeed made concessions, but so have all sides in Northern Ireland

Unsurprisingly for a unionist paper, Monday’s editorial stated that unionists made many concessions in 1998 and since (April 17, see link below).

That certainly has more than a ring of truth as the public had to stomach men of violence on both sides who murdered their loved ones being released. The Good Friday Agreement (GFA) text didn’t contain a commitment to decommissioning from all sides.

However, a detached, impartial assessment would contend that all sides made compromises because if all involved insisted on achieving 100% of their agenda then no agreement would have been reached and God knows how many would have died in the last quarter of a century. The Republic abolished articles 2 and 3 and Sinn Fein renounced violence and accepted the principle of consent. The Windsor Framework shares many similarities with the GFA, not least in sharing common opponents. The NI Protocol is now done and dusted. London, Brussels, Dublin and Washington are happy and the UK has re-established cordial relations with the EU and harbours ambitions of a trade agreement with the US.

The two major blocks in Northern Ireland secured their dominant positions by advocating an intransigent attitude and an ungenerous, uncharitable stance towards the other community. This has been self-defeating because it has not delivered any converts to their respective causes. The Greek storyteller Aesop’s fable of the sun and wind betting who could remove a man’s coat proves that persuasion trumps force.

Consequently, their support has plateaued and the middle moderate ground swelled as people aspire to a society at peace with itself instead of a perpetual toxic environment. Sinn Fein has time on their side because demographics are in their favour. For the Union to succeed it requires a stable prosperous NI. Without that the neutral middle will conclude that the republican mantra that NI is a failed entity has credence.

So how do you make the Union with Britain attractive to nationalists? You stop alienating them, treat them with fairness and respect for their Irish culture so that they identify with NI. The DUP are incapable of this. Their promotion of Brexit, in an effort to widen the divide between the two parts of the island destabilised the GFA. The DUP are not rational actors and the continued union of NI with Britain is not in safe hands.

Time for the politicians and the public to stop majoring in minor things and start building a society where all feel equally cherished and one they can be proud of.

Gerard O'Boyle, Devon

Editorial: Unionists have already made big compromises, back in 1998 and now