Unionists under pressure
Sir: An apparently intelligent letter from Mr Jeremy Burchill (11 July) exemplifies precisely the ingrained attitudes which have destroyed the official Unionist party as a tolerable or even viable force for electing any future government of Northern Ireland. The province's malaise, we are told, is that 'there are two social, cultural and ethnic groupings neither of which can bring their political objectives [my italics] to fruition save at the expense of the other.'
Mr Burchill's outlook is• distinguishable from that of the less-educated and therefore forgivable sectarians of the Belfast back- streets only by the politeness of his language. Let us ignore altogether his refined and ques- tionable racialism. His most self-defeating blindness lies in assuming that 'they' (i.e. Northern Irish Roman Catholics; clever hardline Unionists nowadays avoid direct reference to religious background) have one common set of objectives—presumably
John Wells is away and hopes to resume 'Afterthought' next week.
amounting to severance of the British link or the replacement of Protestant ascendancy by Catholic ascendancy.
In fact, as those of us already working politically together with every chance of ulti- mate success know full well, Northern Irish- men reared in the Roman Catholic tradition are still extremely diverse in their attitudes. If 'they' share any common political belief, it is one which is also shared by a great and growing number of `us': a contempt for and disgust with Mr Burchill's so-called party.
To speak, as he does, of 'the development policies of the Unionist party', is now a manifest absurdity. Major Chichester-Clark's government has development policies, cer- tainly, but the vast mass of Unionist party activists are vociferously opposed to them. Those of us genuinely working for an even- tual solution within Northern Ireland, based on genuine British standards of democracy, have been forced to create our own vehicle.
Anthony Cowdy The Alliance Party of Northern Ireland, Cromwell Road, Belfast
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