Ulster interest
Sir: Your leader onMr Brian Faulkner's defeat at the hands of the Ulster Unionist Party (January 12) displays a total lack of understanding of the feelings of the mass of loyal Ulster men. As a result it is muddled, to say the least.
You write: "Of the IRA nothing need be said in this context." Why not? As you yourself admit. "it can be said that tne wrong policy nas Peen ronoweci from the beginning, and that, had the Protestant majority been genuinely assured of their future within the United Kingdom, as the Sunningdale compact has manifestly failed to assure them, the present fissures would not have been created."
Quite. This is not 'water under the bridge'. The British Government since the prorogation of Stormont, and indeed before, has always shown itself to be more interested in the appeasement of the disloyal minority, than in the defeat of the IRA and the reassurance of the majority. Power-sharing with republicans. the Council of Ireland, the snubs of elected loyalist representatives — all these recent events are by the same men who undertook negotiations with the IRA and in the same mould, they point in the direction of IRA policy.
Is it then any wonder that Mr Faulkner has been defeated at the hands of his erstwhile supporters? After all, there is little other way for respectable law-abiding men to behave in such circumstances.
Adrian V. J. Day 73 St Julian's Farm Road, London SE27
Previous page
