Unionists ‘not trying to offend’ over Union flag

Unionists are not trying to offend nationalists when they insist on the flying of the Union flag in Northern Ireland, a minister in the Stormont power sharing government insisted today.

Culture, Arts and Leisure Minister Michael McGimpsey responded to an address by Northern Ireland Secretary John Reid on sectarianism by arguing that unionists were merely asking people to accept that the Good Friday Agreement enshrined the principle that Ulster was a part of the United Kingdom as long as the majority there wanted it.