Mrs Robinson's message
Sir: Jeffrey Peel argues (Letters, 10 November) that Conservative candidates will stand a better chance in future if they contest parliamentary elections in North- ern Ireland, if they repudiate their party's policy of adherence to the Anglo-Irish agreement and devolution. I am sure he is right; but is this really the appropriate time to call for another split in the party?
More to the point, surely, in relation to the main theme of my article, is Mary Robinson's heartening victory, in the re- public's presidential election. She had ear- lier resigned from the Irish Labour Party from sympathy with the Ulster Protestants' objections to the Anglo-Irish agreement; yet she won. There could hardly be a clearer indication that the desire for poli- tical reunification has faded, to be replaced by a readiness on the part of the people of southern Ireland — even if not, as yet, on the part of some politicians — for direct discussions between North and South to
provide the basis of a mutually agreed solution to the remaining problems — chief among them, the elimination of the IRA.
Brian Inglis
23 Lambolle Road, London NW3
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