Ms Deborah Watters:

I will talk a wee bit about the loss of European identity. My views on that would be very different from those of the young people I work with. I have an 18-year-old who is about to go to university. One of my hopes for him pre-Brexit was that he might be able to study in Europe, so I feel that. I voted to remain. As a Protestant and a unionist living in Northern Ireland, I feel very keenly the loss of my sense of European identity. That is a personal opinion but it is important it is heard because we often hear a single narrative around this and there is not a single narrative around it.

Most of the young people Northern Ireland Alternatives works with never had any aspirations to travel. They live very localised, parochial lives. At times, even getting into the city centre is an issue. Strive has endeavoured to begin conversations about rights by saying to people that this may not be real to them now but it will have implications for them in ten years' time. That is how we begin to talk about a sense of rights. That has not always been palatable within the loyalist community so it is something we are making a deliberate and conscious effort on. Rights are for everyone. Now that Northern Ireland is no longer part of the EU, there is a loss of rights around that. I am part of looking at the implications of that Ireland-wide, even in terms of people-smuggling, trafficking and all those issues. If you are charged with an offence in the South, what does that mean in the North? Those are real issues for our community so it is a valid issue to raise. Can I say that within the loyalist community, the focus on the protocol is so great that there is no negativity around that? The only right they are interested in is the right around the constitutional issue, so there is an onus on us to widen that debate out. When I say "us", I mean leaders within loyalism.