Politicians speak at Remain rally in Belfast

MORE than 1,000 people attending a pro-Remain rally in Belfast have been told that Europe is a force for peace in Northern Ireland and around the world.

A crowd waving EU flags and carrying anti-DUP placards converged outside Belfast City Hall on Saturday afternoon.

Speaking at the event, Alliance Party leader Naomi Long said: “We have the EU to thank for the longest period of peace and stability on the continent of Europe in history.

“The EU forced nations to compromise, forced people to come together on the big issues like climate change.

“It underpinned the peace. “The EU spent money underpinning the peace right across Europe, from the fall of the Berlin Wall, which could have been chaotic, right through to the former Yugoslavia.

“Nowhere did it do that more so than right here.”

Meanwhile, Belfast Lord Mayor Deirdre Hargey said the hard Brexit agenda being pursued by the DUP and Conservative Party was plunging Northern Ireland into the greatest political uncertainty and constitutional challenge for a generation.

“That is reckless and in direct contravention of the democratically expressed will of the majority of people here,” she said.

“In that context, there is an onus on progressive and pragmatic parties to represent the wishes of

the majority and to defend the progress that has been made in this society.”

John Barry, a Queen’s University professor associated with the Green Party in Northern Ireland, also attacked the Brexiteers.

He said: “They are drunk on magical thinking around making England great again and continuing the border with science fiction technology and an exaggerated sense of their importance in the world and they show no signs of sobering up.”