The threat to the Union
Unionism is facing its own existential crisis and must learn how to come to terms with it. Put simply the Democratic Unionist Party represent a clear threat to the very union they purport to uphold. In May 1974 then Prime Minister Harold Wilson used the term “spongers” to describe unionists involved in the UWC strike. Today it is a term that many in the rest of the UK would apply to what the DUP consider robust negotiations. Losing the goodwill of our fellow UK citizens at a time when Northern Ireland’s position in the UK is the principle barrier to many achieving the Brexit they aspire to cannot be considered a strategic position to take. The DUP constantly refer to the principle of consent underpinned in the Belfast Agreement, an agreement they had no hand in, yet they miss the point that while people are free to make their own determination others are free to try and persuade them of one view or the other. Ignoring this point is central to the risks attached to their threa