United condemnation shows how offensive tweet from Alliance MLA was to unionists and nationalists

I WRITE in response to Alliance MLA Kellie Armstrong’s tweet (News, September 14), where she seemed to suggest that anyone who identifies as a unionist, or a nationalist, is inherently sectarian.

This tweet shows that, among even the holier-than-though Alliance Party, there exists people who are prepared to assume that the majority of the Northern Ireland population hold an irrational hatred of another group, based on their religion or sect.

Since this tweet, she has resorted to all manner of weak defences, suggesting that the ongoing fallout was because she was a woman. She only apologised after the Alliance Press office went into meltdown, before apologising by praising her own party colleague.

I write as an unashamed unionist, someone who believes Northern Ireland’s future is strongest in the United Kingdom, but who wishes no ill-will to my neighbours, who may hold a different opinion.

I believe Northern Ireland’s future lies in unionists and nationalists learning to accept and respect each other’s opinion and, while they may not agree, to conduct their arguments in a respectful and rational manner while always working for the betterment of all people. While I was elected as a unionist, I have the honour to represent all people; unionist, nationalist and others within Omagh.

I am equally offended that Kellie Armstrong has so openly offended this large section of my constituency, whether they are unionist or nationalist.

Ironically, Kellie, in her tweet, has brought the most ardent unionists and nationalists together in their unequivocal condemnation of these attitudes.