It’s a fallacy for those opposed to our place in UK to suggest that unionists have lost their majority

I HAVE noticed in recent years that opponents of Northern Ireland’s place in the United Kingdom keep saying that “unionists have lost their majority”. I assume what they mean by that is that parties containing the word “unionist” in their titles no longer hold majorities of seats, or votes.

As a unionist, I would naturally prefer to see more people actually voting for unionist parties, but I am conscious of the fact that, for decades, the people of Northern Ireland have been nagged, begged and cajoled by the great and the good to forsake the “old politics” of Green and Orange.

Now, when hundreds of thousands of voters seem to have adopted that advice (to the benefit of parties like Alliance and the Greens), we hear a chorus of nationalists crowing about the “loss of the unionist majority”.

They conveniently ignore a fall in the overtly nationalist vote as well. It just isn’t as noticeable, because nationalists were — and are — a minority. In the Republic of Ireland, for all its triumphalism, the overtly nationalist Sinn Fein secured less than a quarter of Irish votes.

Unionists are not just the people who mark their ballots in favour of unionist parties. As the recent Liverpool University survey points out, when someone actually asks the people of Northern Ireland which country they want to be in, the answer, in clear terms, is the United Kingdom.

In spite of the concerns and fears stirred up over Brexit since 2016, slightly under 29% of respondents would vote for a united Ireland. Excluding the “don’t knows”, the figures show 65% supporting the Union and 35% a united Ireland.

As I recall, that was essentially the position 50 years ago. So much for unionists losing our majority.

MASON POWELL Belfast