Letter: The current path taken by the DUP is one that only leads to Leinster House

In response to Tom Ferguson’s somewhat myopic and confused letter on moving the so-called “Irish Sea Border” to the land (‘If the Irish Sea border is harmless then move it to land,’ May 1, see link below).

There is an ongoing refusal by elements of unionist leadership to accept the real reasons behind the decisions that were made and a belief that it is merely placed as a constitutional aberration. Tom suggests the solution is to "Simply move the EU checkpoints from Larne, Belfast and Warrenpoint to Dundalk, Belleek, Lifford and Letterkenny” without addressing the true underlying reason for the original decisions.

Using the single entry ports and two airports were always going to be the more attractive approach when the hard Brexit was pushed for by a, remarkably, naive DUP who were overcome by their desire to drive a wedge between Northern Ireland and the Republic. Pragmatism was lost, ideology took hold and when the more desirable realpolitik meets that ideology then there are always going to be casualties. The DUPs failure to prepare their base for this is what has caused the destabilisation. There will never be a border on the island because the cost of providing it is far outweighed by that of the current proposal.

The UK government have already shown their unwillingness to raid the exchequer to appease the DUPs current status. If the real leaders of unionism are looking to secure NI's place in the UK by making the current position work, then it's time to cast off the nonsense noise from Twitter Tough Guys and Blogging Blaggers. They have confused their base and painted themselves into a corner.

Their current path is leading to Leinster House. Which I personally welcome.

Patrick Smyth, Manchester

Letter: If the Irish Sea border is harmless then move it to the land frontier