Red hands across the sea
Sir: I accept wholly Mr Anthony Cowdy's criticism (Letters, 6 June) of my erroneous assumption that 'any Northern Ireland government' necessarily means a govern- ment of the Unionist party.
As to Mr Jeremy Burchill's muddled and petulant outburst (letters, 6 June): leaving aside forty years' worth of rigidly sectarian policies, the Unionist party's link with the Orange Order is alone sufficient to demolish any claim that the party is 'open to all'. Not
only are Unionist meetings customarily held in Orange halls, and in an atmosphere of highly charged Protestantism; in some con- .tituencies the number of non-elected, sec- tarian delegates is at least one-third of the total, thereby weighting the candidate selec- tion process. This is not democracy.
It is a measure of hard-line Unionists' paradoxical insistence on regarding Northern Ireland politics as outside the con- cern of anybody else in the United Kingdom that Mr Burchill should sneer at me as a Glaswegian. As a Glaswegian of 6 months %intage, and by happy adoption, I must nevertheless point out that I am Ulster-born and bred. But not—before your cor- respondent makes any further assump- tions—a Catholic.
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