4.6 • 74 Ratings
🗓️ 7 December 2022
⏱️ 32 minutes
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Mark Carruthers asks Sheila Davidson from Together UK, former MLA John McCallister and Prof Jon Tonge what the future holds for civic unionism.
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0:00.0 | How can unionism best respond to nationalism's big push to mobilise the United Ireland narrative? |
0:06.1 | Between the political parties, the Taoiseach shared island initiative and the conversations promoted by the Ireland's future organisation, |
0:12.9 | there's a lot of talk about a border poll and the possibility of real constitutional change. |
0:18.5 | Meanwhile, unionism's critics, internal and external, say it's failing to |
0:23.1 | sell the positive benefits of the union and the reasons for that, of course, are many and varied. |
0:28.2 | So what chance is there that Arlene Foster's recently launched Together UK Foundation could turn out |
0:34.0 | to be a game changer? That's what we're discussing on this week's Red Lines |
0:37.9 | and one of Together UK's board members |
0:40.3 | is sitting right beside me. |
0:42.3 | Sheila Davidson, we've known each other for a very long time. |
0:46.2 | Why have you decided to get involved in this venture? |
0:49.5 | Well, first of all, it is a venture. |
0:51.3 | It's not a political party and I want to make that very, very clear. |
0:55.0 | Anybody that's involved in it, and we call ourselves a very broad church because that's what it is. |
1:00.1 | I mean, at the launch we had in London very recently, we had people there from Labour, from Conservative Party. |
1:07.1 | We had people there that from Asian backgrounds that were journalists in India, that sort of thing. |
1:14.1 | So there's a very, very broad church of people who really do believe that a United Kingdom is a very |
1:20.8 | positive, strong and, I suppose, powerful voice that needs to be promoted. |
1:28.7 | So what we are in the foundation is kind of a group of people, you know, we're not trying |
1:35.9 | to be something, you know, powerful in the sense of a presence in the political field. |
1:41.3 | But what we do want to do is to make sure that whenever the debate is happening, |
1:45.7 | that there is information out there that, obviously in favour of the union, |
... |
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