Ex-Alliance figure Trevor Lunn tells News Letter why he now leans towards Irish unity ahead of large-scale nationalist/republican ‘Together We Can’ summit on Saturday

Trevor Lunn said one of the driving factors for his view is that Great Britain simply seems to have got fed up of Northern Ireland’s “endless problems”.

Mr Lunn was an Alliance Assemblyman in Lagan Valley from 2007 to 2020, before serving a final two years as an independent.

Today he is a member of the organisation Ireland’s Future, a pro-reunification outfit headquartered in Dublin.

Ireland’s Future is staging a conference in the giant 3Arena in Dublin on Saturday involving speeches from leading nationalists and republicans as well as actors James Nesbitt and Colm Meaney.

The organisation is registered as a company in the Republic, and says its aims are to “promote a unity referendum” and “advance the arguments that will win that referendum”.

Speaking to the News Letter ahead of the Dublin event, Mr Lunn was asked if he now favours Irish unity.

“I’m leaning towards that outcome, let’s put it that way.

“I’d like to see the conclusion of the various discussions that are going to take place.

“I’d like to tie down the actual figures... about the health service, about the education system, about policing – who’s going to pay for it? Who can afford it?”

Asked why he leans this way, he replied: “I think the main criterion for me is the extent to which Great Britain appears to want us, which seems to be waning.

“I can see a distinct possibility of Scotland having a referendum and perhaps rolling [out of] the union. I think it’s more likely now than it was the last time.

“If that happens, if the UK is going to be England, Wales and us, I think we’ll be next in the firing line.

“I’m not convinced the British want us. I think they’ve almost had enough.”

It was put to him that London remained committed to keeping Northern Ireland in the UK throughput the Troubles.

He replied that during those years the government “didn’t want to be seen to be giving in, or giving way, to the IRA campaign... that had to be resisted – you couldn’t let people bring about constitutional change using violence”.

He added: “The attitude of the English people has changed – not just the politicians.

“On a straightforward question of ‘should Northern Ireland remain part of the UK?’ I think the average Englishman would say: ‘I don’t know. Who cares?’

“They’ve lost the affinity for Northern Ireland, and I’m not sure it’s coming back.

“It’s a weariness with Northern Ireland and the endless problems we have here. We don’t seem to be able to settle down and govern ourselves in a semi-normal way.

“It’s always confrontation, potential strife, political stand-off. I think the English are probably getting a bit sick of it really.”

As to whether a united Ireland would just spell more violence and strife, he said: “For the same reasons we shouldn’t have given in to the IRA, I don’t see we can use the threat of violence form loyalist sources as a reason for not doing the right thing.”

And a united Ireland looks like the right thing now?

“I think it probably is,” he said.

“I’d like to see more detail. More figures. But at the end of the day it’s up to the population, north and south.”

He said unionists’ “refusal to engage in a discussion and conversation” on the issue is “counter-productive”.

On the subject of the Dublin event, which he will be at, he said: “The level of interest right across the country, the UK, and the world... is considerable and it’s growing.”

More from this reporter:

• Irish unity poll: DUP MP wonders whether ex-Northern Ireland Secretary Shaun Woodward ‘inhabits a parallel universe’ after referendum claims on Nolan Show

• Ex-IRA man on King Charles III visit to Northern Ireland: Sinn Fein have gone from ‘victory to the blanketmen’ to ‘victory to the banquet-men’