Letter: No one wished to see the Stormont government inactive - but unionism’s protest was a completely legitimate one

A letter from R G McDowell:

At the start of the year, the DUP endorsed a deal with the UK government allowing it to end a long-running boycott of Stormont. The collapse of the institutions was completely the result of the Conservative government’s actions, writes R G McDowell

Following recent analysis speculating on the potential cost of Irish unification, former taoiseach Leo Varadkar said Irish unification should “never be about money”, stating “if you believe in the unification of your country, three or four per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) is a small price to pay”.

In many respects this is a quite admirable sentiment.

If you consider yourself part of a nation then you should have loyalty to it as a whole not the financial contributions or burdens of any particular part of it.

Letter to the editor

The Falkland Islanders for example are a very small but indispensable part of the British nation.

I wouldn’t ever assess their worth by logistics of how far away they are or by the potential finance involved for security etc.

It is reasonable to ask the question however, if this is a fair enough principle to apply to Irish nationalism or other parts of Britain then why was unionism so heavily criticised and even blackmailed into returning to the Stormont executive for simply putting their desire to remain British ahead of monetary gain.

Unionist opponents continue to have their various digs at unionism for Stormont not having functioned for two years.

Unionism’s protest was a completely legitimate one. The two governments in conjunction with others continually used threats of the health service etc being run down or refused funding because of unionism’s absence.

The Secretary of State refused to take proper control in the absence of an executive, the collapse of which was completely the result of the Conservative government’s actions.

No unionist wished to see the Stormont government inactive.

The actions of the two governments forced unionism into an impossible situation whereby they couldn’t participate in the executive without giving legitimacy to an arrangement which passes Northern Ireland’s sovereignty to a foreign country.

R G McDowell, Belfast BT5