Professor Peter Shirlow:

I am not disagreeing with that. I think there is a conversation in that, but I think it is important to go back to the evidence. It is not just unionists who have misgivings about a united Ireland. I lectured earlier on about not getting into the constitutional question, and of course being from Belfast I had to get back in to the constitutional question.

We have to work out the unionist position in term of the DUP etc., and there are legitimate concerns. They have reflected the concerns that have come out of the business community. We are still in the grace period but they were picking up issues that checks were going to cause for the economy of Northern Ireland. There has been the recent 25% imposition on steel products coming into Northern Ireland. That should not be a concern just for unionists, or articulated just by unionists. That is something that should be articulated by everybody. I think this is one of the problems that we had. As much as unionist behaviour has quite clearly been intransigent and difficult, you started off with Sinn Féin, the SDLP and the Alliance Party repeatedly calling for implementation of the protocol. Whenever civic society stood up and said there were issues with the protocol and it affects supply chains and all of that, then there were calls to reform the protocol. There was no recognition by those parties publicly that there were issues. That is not good political leadership either. One thing that is also important to understand is that the unionist thing is not as clearcut as people think. Some 40% of DUP voters support marriage equality, but the politics of the DUP is anti-marriage equality, or hostile to it. People have got to realise that just because people are unionists it does not mean they subscribe to what they vote for. They vote on constitutional reasons usually. The question for the DUP is critical and I think this is where evidence from Queens and other universities and ourselves is important. This is not the main issue that people in Northern Ireland are discussing. Ever more so, the main issues are the cost of living, housing and the health service issues. In terms of the crystal ball approach it is clear that at some point Jeffrey Donaldson has to accept a deal if there are some more mitigations, because that is what the unionist community is prepared to accept. That has to be articulated by civic leaders and by people within that community. There is a pragmatism here. However, theoretically the argument Jeffrey Donaldson has to adopt is that if he wants to save the union, the only way to do it is to build a very significant, high income, high value economy in Northern Ireland. The best way to do that is within the eco system I talked about earlier, which is the whole management of the interdependencies that are now the modern relationships on this island and between these islands. That is the way for him to start thinking. I think what is important, and what the protocol has shown, has been the weakness of party politics in Northern Ireland. However, what it has also shown is the strength and the capacity of the civic sector. The civic sector has got this right. They have called out the issues with the protocol. They have called out the opportunities that exist with the protocol. They have also continued to build trading relationships north, south, east and west. That is something that should not be forgotten. Civic society has made a major contribution here to understanding the issues and the potential to get beyond those issues.