Letter: Catholic need not mean nationalist
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Sir: David McKittrick ('Pause in killing dashes peace hopes', 1 April) asserts that Ken Maginnis, Unionist MP for Fermanagh and South Tyrone (a majority Roman Catholic constituency), owes his seat to a split nationalist vote between Sinn Fein and the SDLP. This is untrue.
At the 1992 general election, Mr Maginnis polled 26,923 votes, while the SDLP candidate polled 12,810 and Sinn Fein 12,604; the latter two together making a total of 25,414. The combined nationalist vote was therefore more than 1,500 votes short of the Unionist total. Similarly, in the 1987 general election, Mr Maginnis's vote was more than 2,000 ahead of the combined nationalist total.
From these figures, it is obvious that Mr Maginnis enjoys support from both Protestant and Roman Catholic voters. It may be convenient for Mr McKittrick to assume that all Roman Catholics are nationalists, but this assumption does not stand up to scrutiny, either by way of opinion polls, which regularly show that up to 85 per cent of people in Northern Ireland are quite happy to remain in the UK, or through his ill-chosen example of Mr Maginnis.
Yours faithfully,
ROY BEGGS
MP for Antrim East (UUP)
House of Commons
London, SW1
1 April
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments