Ms Claire Sugden:

I appreciate the opportunity to give evidence to the committee on a topic we are having more conversations about. It is much appreciated that we are speaking to all voices within this conversation about how it impacts on all of us, not just in Northern Ireland but in Ireland and throughout these islands. My motivation is to ensure, as both an elected representative and a citizen, that we do the best we can for everyone living here and ensure we can provide for a future that is good for everyone.

I am one of two Independent representatives in the Northern Ireland Assembly. Being independent means I am not affiliated to a political party and does not necessarily mean I am independent of political thought, and we can discuss later what that means. As per the Good Friday Agreement, when someone becomes a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly, he or she is required to designate himself or herself as a unionist, nationalist or other. When I am asked the question, I am honest about this, which the Good Friday Agreement encourages us to do. It encourages us to embrace who we are in order that we can have those conversations and understand why others are not the same and to hear what they believe.

Ultimately, my unionism comes down to the fact I think that Northern Ireland's placement within the United Kingdom is the best context in which to provide public services for the people of Northern Ireland. As an elected representative whose job it is to improve public services, it would be remiss of me not to consider the context in which that happens because there would be a very different outcome if that context were different. While some people very much look at this as an identity-based ideal, for me it is very much a practical one. Many of the debates we are having encapsulate identity politics rather than jurisdictional politics, and by “jurisdictional politics” I mean the context and how we provide public services, that is, how things are costed. It relates even to our position geographically on these islands, and there will be some policies where the all-Ireland context is entirely relevant. Equally, however, the UK and British Isles context is relevant and that is something we need to look at.

To return to identity, because it is something we tend to focus on, I am British but I am equally Irish. I am a unionist but I am perhaps left of centre. Unionism is sometimes misrepresented in that regard because of the focus on other parties that tend to more right wing. Ultimately, we misunderstand these labels, which is not conducive to moving forward or to how we understand one another and live together on these islands.