Mr. Pat Hynes:

The impact of Brexit is yet to be seen or realised. The remarks on the Brexit poll reflect what we have heard in many loyalist and unionist communities. It is the absence of a conversation about what a new Ireland would look like in the event of a Border poll switching sovereignty from London to Dublin. Article 1(5) of the Good Friday Agreement asserts that whoever holds the sovereignty over the territory of Northern Ireland shall exercise it with rigorous impartiality in regard to the hopes, traditions, aspirations, cultural identities and so on of the two traditions based on the concept of parity of esteem. Many loyalist communities are not feeling parity of esteem. We in this part of the island must acknowledge that we may have to do more by way of engagement around the concept of a united Ireland, an agreed Ireland or whatever we want to call it. Loyalists see Border polls and the concept of a united Ireland as an age-old republican demand. From my discussions with republicans, I am confident that is not what is intended, but it illustrates that in the absence of an appropriate conversation and a real level of engagement with loyalists on an inclusive basis, we will see an increased sense of fear.

It is the potentiality of their minority status in Northern Ireland which is creating a huge level of disturbance. As I said in earlier remarks, the results of the recent elections will only serve to deepen their sense of estrangement from the direction that things are going, which is away from where they feel most comfortable. Whatever happens in the future, from their perspective, and I do not want to get into the detail of what they felt is wrong with the arrangements on Brexit Boris Johnson made prior to the general election, clearly many of them have a deep sense that this was a betrayal of what they thought they had got before.

In the context of the general movement towards a new set of relationships, whatever they will be post Brexit, we have to endeavour as best we can to include them in these conversations. We have to recognise that the starting point will be, "I do not want to be Irish", "I do not want a united Ireland", "I do not feel Irish" and "I am British and I want to stay part of the Union". If we accept that, and in that very first section of the Good Friday Agreement we all acknowledge that as a legitimate aspiration, the challenge for us is to frame a conversation in that context so they do not feel threatened and so we can have reasonable conversations around the nature of the relationship we will have to have with them, as a community, and, in essence, with the United Kingdom. In the future, they will be a community who will have a British identity and, I suspect, they will in all probability seek, as nationalists have done in Northern Ireland, the involvement of the United Kingdom in some role or way in an effort to give expression to that identity in the future. Again, what is that conversation and what does that new architecture or structure look like?

It is important that we start those conversations in order to assuage the fears they have that, in some way, they are going to be trampled upon or there will be a small corner somewhere that we will find for them. The conversation has to be that they will be equal. Everybody on the island is equal. It is a matter of equality, and they are as equal as me or anybody else in that conversation. That will be the best start. Their fear will be that the long sought-after victory of a united Ireland will be their defeat but we cannot embark on that road. That is the challenge for all of us on this island, namely, how we frame that conversation and how we develop those structures and that architecture, so they do not go into a room feeling that the outcome is front-loaded to their detriment.