Unionism in Northern Ireland: 'We're being pushed to one side'

Unionism in Northern Ireland is at a crossroads.

With the power-sharing government still down, and unionism's largest party - the DUP - not yet saying whether it will return to Stormont in the wake of the Windsor Framework, the way forward is unclear.

In the first of a three-part series, BBC News NI's Chris Buckler asks unionists about the movement's political future - and what they want to see happen next.

For Stuart Brooker, the latest crisis has arrived because the post-Brexit arrangements for Northern Ireland - such as the NI Protocol and now the Windsor Framework - have "eroded [his] Britishness".

"We can go right back to the Anglo-Irish Agreement and from all those years ago we can see things being chipped away, a little bit at a time, a little bit at a time."

For others such a Davy Wilson, who runs a freight company and describes himself as a "liberal unionist", more harm is being done by a lack of government than the Windsor Framework.

"If our MLAs would get back into Stormont, get their heads together and get working again that would be a starting point," he said.

David Kerr, meanwhile, a former Ulster Unionist adviser to then first minister David Trimble, told BBC News NI the DUP risks splitting the party if it continues to prevent the formation of a government in Northern Ireland.

3 April 2023

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