DUP is destroying past progress and muddying the waters of Brexit by insulting Mr Varadkar

WHAT passes for unionism today is more tribal than unionist, and if Prime Minister Theresa May succeeds in her Brexit proposals and the various factions of unionism, as a result, come together in opposition, that would be further evidence supporting that view.

It was a concern of Irish unionism in the early part of the last century that there should be no border down through the North Channel and the Irish Sea, given the consequences unionists feared would follow if the aspirations of a separatist nationalism should succeed. They were to be proven correct in that fear.

Sean Lemass sought to rectify the loss for the Republic in trying to act alone in having a hard border down the Irish Sea (a border which it had brought about). The loss was all too obvious in its economy and in the exodus of many of its population to England.

Then, to the astonishment of many, he did a somersault and visited Terence O’Neill, Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, at Stormont and later secured a free trade agreement with the UK in the summer of 1965. The border became largely irrelevant.

But the clamour aroused by Rev Ian Paisley in stirring up the dust about ‘Popery’ was enough to obscure both what was happening in that respect and the import of the Lemass visit.

It is a hard border down the Irish Sea (in other words, divisions between the Britannic islands), even if he disguises it in a republican rhetoric in order to stave off criticism, that worries Leo Varadkar.

The DUP, instead of recognising that worry as basically for all a unionist worry, only help in disguising it by their insults.

WA MILLER Belfast