TUV conference: Rishi Sunak’s deal tried to bamboozle unionists, Owen Polley tells event

He told delegates in Cookstown on Saturday that he had once described himself as a ‘liberal unionist’ but that "was when ‘liberalism’ seemed to mean a belief that people should be as free as possible to make up their own minds about moral or social issues". Not as it has become today "an authoritarian doctrine that tries to enforce all kinds of controversial theories, like the idea that gender is an identity that can be changed on a whim or that we should disown our nation’s history and symbols to atone for ‘colonialism' or that all white people share privileges over other races".

He said that he had written for many publications, including non unionist ones, but "the News Letter has been the only newspaper in Northern Ireland to consistently and accurately analyse the effects of the emergence since 2016 of the so-called ‘Irish Sea border’... from the first attempts by nationalists to claim that this province should be subjected to a form of ‘special status’... "to Rishi Sunak’s deal, which attempted to bamboozle unionists into believing that their place in the UK had been fully restored".

He said that this newspaper had "been at the forefront of highlighting many other important things in our society that have gone wrong, whether it’s the scandal of legacy where republicans have been allowed to whitewash the brutality of the IRA or the waste and ineffectiveness of devolved government at Stormont or the repeated encroachment of the Republic into Northern Ireland’s internal affairs".

Mr Polley asked: "What do people in this hall today understand by the Union?" Then he attempted to answer that question, saying it was bout Northern Ireland’s "ability to play a full role in the economic, social and political life of the UK".

He said: "Even in the unlikely event that being cut off from our most important market brought prosperity to Northern Ireland, we would no longer be a full and inseparable part of the UK."

Mr Polley said that many unionists had played a part in making NI a "place apart" from the rest of the UK. "I believe that Northern Ireland has only two possible foreseeable futures. One is the social and economic chaos that would follow if Northern Ireland were annexed by the Irish republic. The alternative is a peaceful and prosperous future as a full and inseparable part of the United Kingdom."