Three Thousand Versts of Loneliness

Satire is the only sane response to Jeffrey Donaldson’s remarks on plans to reform the Act of Settlement. O’Neill’s post on ‘Unionist Lite’ is, therefore, especially nicely judged. The DUP junior minister’s religio-constitutional musings would be funny, if they were not so serious. Donaldson is, after all, a leading representative of Northern Ireland’s biggest pro-Union party. There is an argument, based on constitutional conservatism, which can be invoked to defend the status quo. Cranmer, good Anglican that he is, makes a fist of it . It does not involve inferring that Catholics cannot show sufficient loyalty to the United Kingdom because of their religion, nor does it bizarrely imply political, rather than merely religious, allegiance to the Vatican as a component of Catholicism. Personally I am more readily persuaded by Henry McDonald, and his contention that the constitutional impairment of Roman Catholicism is to the detriment of the Union, particularly in Northern Irela