Northern Ireland’s current system of government is not working well. This is the year to improve it, Alistair Lexden argued in a letter published in The Times on January 23 under the headline “Saving the Union”.
Sir, James Forsyth’s call to make “the structures of government fit for purpose” (Comment, Jan 22) should be heeded in Northern Ireland as well as Scotland. More than 20 years on, the Belfast agreement needs urgent review. Victims of terrorism are dying without the compensation that is their due because the ramshackle coalition of incompatible parties at Stormont cannot agree who should pay for it, with Sinn Fein holding the purse strings. It demands that Westminster should foot the bill. It is wrong to say that this does not matter because Ulster is heading for the exit as a result of Boris Johnson’s shameful Northern Ireland Protocol, which gives the EU a large role in the province’s affairs. Parties opposed to the Union got just over a third of the vote at the 2019 election. A new constitutional deal for Ulster within the Union should be a key objective this year, which marks the centenary of Northern Ireland’s creation.
Lord Lexden
House of Lords
