DUP has to reconnect with the working class

AFTER yet another election debacle for unionism, Arlene Foster is telling us the DUP is listening. We have heard all this before; it’s just a soundbite.

Those who baulk at my use of the word ‘debacle’ need to acquaint themselves with the facts.

This reverse has been coming for some time, and if unionism doesn’t get the message, it could turn out to be a disaster.

They have lost two seats, for the first time nationalists have more seats, the unionist share of the vote has plummeted and the DUP has lost its deputy leader and most gifted MP.

Could it be that, at the last election, unionism reached its high-water mark and the tide is starting to go out? How long before we reach the point of no return?

The DUP needs to sit down and reconnect with its working-class roots.

The Protestant community has lost its self-respect and needs to be challenged to stand on its own feet.

We need a political party that is brutally honest and warns our community that it will only survive if it is up for the challenge to harness our undoubted talents and learn to shift for ourselves.

The DUP once encouraged and inspired the Protestant community to do this, but they have fallen victim to the trappings of power and compromise.

There is no point in the Protestant community looking to London, or Dublin; they won’t answer our cry for help. If we are going to survive, we will have to be the arbiters of our own destiny, but there is no salvation for a lost soul.

We need to return and find it where we left it, buried out there somewhere in our past.

CLIVE MAXWELL Bleary, Co Armagh