JOHN HARPUR,
Sir, - David Burnside's continuing attempts to outflank David Trimble show definitively that Orangeism is far from accepting the political reality of the North.
The antics of MLAs Burnside and Donaldson and assorted fellow travellers put me in mind of a perverse astronomical phenomenon in post-agreement Unionist cosmology. This is the attempt by a political vacuum to occupy space.
Anti-agreement Unionists are unable to accept that life has moved on and a return to the past is stuff of fiction. Speaking on RTE's Today at One programme last Sunday, Burnside seriously held out the possibility of the SDLP agreeing to a 60 per cent weighted majority voting system over the current cross-community support protocol. The fact that he even voiced the fancy is a measure of the political distance yet to be travelled by him and his supporters.
But what alternative of any substance have the Burnsiders to offer in place of the agreement? When questioned on this point on previous occasions, the refrain has been to tick off the blackguardism of the nationalists.
One cannot help but wonder if the desire to wreck the Assembly is a case of advanced pre-election nerves. The constant barracking of Trimble from within the UUP simply underlines the jaded political appetite of the party. Whether or not Mr Trimble survives as leader until next May is neither here nor there. He has been at best a fair-weather friend to the Belfast Agreement. At times, he has combined the worst in judgment with the basest populism.
History may show that the Burnsiders' main contribution to shoring up the agreement will be the destruction of the UUP. And few nationalists will mourn the passing of such a historically oppressive institution. - Yours, etc.,
JOHN HARPUR,
Trim,
Co Meath.