Letters to the Editor: Will the DUP be ready for shared island conversation?

Boris Johnson with DUP Leader Arlene Foster.

Arlene Foster’s “blood red line”, which she declared in 2018 pertaining to anything that could divide Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK, may be in danger of being washed away by the border in the Irish Sea which Sammy Wilson has declared as diminishing his Britishness. Also in 2018, along with their DUP colleagues, they both whooped with delight at Boris Johnson’s “junk the backstop” mantra at the party’s annual conference. Unfortunately for the DUP, Johnson junked it once he got his majority as prime minister.

It is regrettable to observe the DUP continue to allow itself be compromised and sometimes betrayed not just by the whims of the Tories but more recently by radical unionists and loyalist threats. Rather than bite the bullet of the consequences of the Brexit they voted for, they lead the battle — under the accepted mores of democracy — for their community in dealing with what is no doubt a very difficult situation for them.