Prof Colin Harvey: QUB confirms giving permission for its branding on report for Irish unification

Last week QUB law Professor Colin Harvey tweeted that he would soon publish a report entitled ‘Making the Case for Irish Unity in the EU’. An image of the report shows the QUB logo on the front cover.

Prof Harvey is also a board member of Ireland's Future, an all island group which is campaigning for Irish unification and which held a major conference on the issue in Dublin last month.

On Thursday DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson tweeted that he would be raising the use of the logo on the report with QUB management on Friday, adding: "Our universities should be above partisan politics".

After the meeting he said he had been assured that the "matter was being dealt with".

However, on Saturday Prof Harvey tweeted that he had been given approval from QUB to use the logo, which was reiterated in a statement published by KRW Law on Monday.

QUB issuing a brief statement defending Prof Harvey's freedom of thought and expression but Sinn Féin MLA Caoimhe Archibald pressed QUB to publicly acknowledge permission was granted to use the logo.

Now this morning, QUB has finally confirmed to the News Letter that it did indeed give permission for Prof Harvey to use the logo.

UUP councillor John Kyle had also tweeted his concerns about the branding.

"I am very surprised by this news," he told the News Letter. "Is it really appropriate for Queen's to be giving its approval to what is clearly a political project?"