Stormont is like a glorified county council, but less effective

Your excellent leader on the problems of devolution (‘Devolution means local decisions, which is good, yet it does indeed pose risks for the UK,’ , Morning View, February 18) makes one basic error.

You refer to “...definite advantages to people being ruled in a transparent fashion at a local level...”

This may be true but it does not describe devolution as applied in Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland.

While some national powers have indeed been devolved from Westminster these are by no means enough to keep devolved legislatures occupied.

Additional responsibilities must be exported from local government to the legislature greatly diluting the close relationship between local councillors and their electorate and adding layers of bureaucracy to cloud transparency.

In reality, our devolved legislatures are little more than glorified county councils but much less effective.

Your leader goes on to correctly point out the disadvantages of devolution where large separatist elements are present and the ambivalent position of Treasury funding of devolved regions.

If the UK had remained a true Union represented by one elected Parliament the issue of an Irish Sea border would never have arisen.

The problems of the border on the island of Ireland would be best solved by persuading our Irish neighbours that their best interests lie in the natural Union of the British Isles and not as a colony of a continental empire.

Alan Love, Ukip Northern Ireland regional chairman, Lisburn

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