Letter: Major's insensitivity to Unionists

Sir: How is it that John Major was so recklessly insensitive to opinion at the harder end of Unionism as to inflict on Tuesday such a humiliation on Ian Paisley and those whom he represents? ('Paisley is left 'feeling empty' ', 7 September). Paisley's style may be blundering and his views repugnant to the liberal conscience, but was it beyond the wit of a Prime Minister who has negotiated for so long and so delicately with Sinn Fein to let him deliver his prepared statement?

We all fervently desire peace in Northern Ireland (none more so, in fact, than Unionists, since the bulk of 25 years' violence has been aimed at eroding their position). Most of us, I submit, are prepared to accept the prevarication and concealment which the British government has had to employ for the sake of this objective. Paisley, however, seems to have been ejected from Downing Street for daring to suggest that a government whose prevarication has helped to achieve an IRA ceasefire might be prepared to go on prevaricating in pursuit of a political settlement.

Major's confrontation with Paisley occurred on the day that Sinn Fein was brought back into the nationalist fold. Adams, Hume and Reynolds now form a united front, supported by the Irish-American lobby, and will speak with one voice in negotiations on Northern Ireland's future. What of the other side of the negotiating table?

Can the British ethnic minority on the island of Ireland - the Unionists - rely on a British government for support? Not on the evidence of Major's meeting with Paisley. Herein lies the real danger for Ireland as a whole. Successive British governments have shifted position in order to accommodate nationalism, to the point where Major's tactful handling of Sinn Fein before the ceasefire contrasts sharply with his subsequent treatment of Unionists like Paisley.

Let us hope that the nationalists, at least, are more sensitive to the mixture of isolation, abandonment and (increasingly) humiliation felt by Unionists. The Unionists' own government appears to be indifferent.

Yours sincerely,

DAVID BOAL

Godalming, Surrey