Letter: With regret I see little prospect of real national politics in Northern Ireland through any national party organisation and I have quit my role with the NI Conservatives

Other less contentious but important legislation is delayed with devastating effects on our health service, education system and environment. Government is about choice, priority and difficult decisions ,the executive does not fulfil this fundamental role even when it is functioning and the only way out is institutional reform. There is no mechanism to negotiate necessary changes and meanwhile with budgetary pressures mounting this government has resorted to tightening the financial screw which won’t deal with underlying issues.

It is time for a maturing of politics with moves towards voluntary coalition as envisaged at the time of the Belfast Agreement. Nationalism and unionism should embrace change for better government .Parties need to address the pressing economic and social issues and make decisions through coalition and compromise like in other functioning democracies. The current carve up does not deliver good government but merely perpetuates sectarian division and voting based on sectarian head counts.

NI Conservatives continually fail to challenge the government on devolved issues. It is disappointing that NI Conservatives provide cover for this government’s continuing policy of 'souring the milk' and recently described by commentators as an 'economic war on unionism' under NIO joint stewardship with Dublin input/oversight. Following its worst vote ever in council elections NI Conservatives have no strategic plan in place. For these reasons and due to continued mixed messages through Tory /DUP linkages in advance of recent council elections I resigned in early March 2023 as vice chair Political of NI Conservatives, three others of the governing Executive Council resigned shortly afterwards. Short of a full scale commitment to organise by Conservative Central Office (or in Labour's case the National Executive Committee) and the ditching of the restrictive neutrality clause in the Belfast Agreement on a UK government of any colour it is with regret I see little prospect of real national politics in Northern Ireland through any national party organization and their current structures.

It is now time to focus on the reform of the institutions to allow more mature politics to emerge without vetoes and continued threat of collapse .This would enable real politics to emerge, opposition structures to be created with proper scrutiny ,accountability and better decision making. Voter behaviour may even change rewarding the increasingly squeezed smaller parties with positive policies based on real issues.

Johnny Andrews, Vice Chair NI Conservative Multi Constituency Association 2022-2023, Economy spokesman 2017-2022, ex candidate, Comber