Prime minister’s article and his TUV snub are a troubling harbinger

News Letter editorial on Tuesday May 17 2022
News Letter editorialNews Letter editorial
News Letter editorial

In this editorial column yesterday, we urged the prime minister to meet the leader of Traditional Unionist Voice, Jim Allister QC MLA.

It is no surprise that Boris Johnson did not do so. After all, the Northern Ireland Office would hardly want such a thing, so concerned is it with pleasing nationalism and Ireland’s nationalist Department of Foreign Affairs.

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But for all its predictability, the failure to meet the TUV leader after his excellent election result is a troubling harbinger. As was a long (very long — 2,200 words) article that Mr Johnson wrote for the Belfast Telegraph yesterday.

Readers of this, the oldest English language daily newspaper in the world, which has been reporting on prime ministers since the very first one, Robert Walpole, who was in Downing Street when we launched in 1737, might wonder why he did not pen the piece for all the papers, including this one.

It might be that Mr Johnson did not want to address a unionist audience, because his advisors felt that he needed to reassure non unionists as to his plan to amend the Northern Ireland Protocol. That is a logical motive if so. But Mr Johnson’s message tipped too far towards nationalist demands.

He repeated the no selfish or strategic interest line about London towards NI. He referred to the hybrid status of NI, which will delight separatists who want us to be a place apart. He gave assurances on abortion and Irish language, and urged restoration of Stormont, something he never told SF to do when it kept down devolution for the said Irish language act.

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Mr Johnson also gushed about the Sinn Fein victory and the Alliance Party surge. That makes his failure to recognise the TUV all the more inappropriate. TUV got a higher vote share than Alliance has done in most Stormont elections since 1996, yet it got not so much as a mention.

Did he think he would get thanks from these non unionist parties for his warm words for their mandate? If he and his advisors expected such a thing they were disabused of it yesterday, when Mr Johnson was target of unrelenting scorn.