Northern Ireland needs a new unionism that reflects the diverse and multicultural nature of the UK

Since the spiralling civil conflict of the Troubles in the early 1970s, unionism in Northern Ireland has always been more preoccupied with asserting its opposition to Irish unification, as opposed to articulating a vision of what it is and aspires to be, and how it fits into an increasingly multicultural United Kingdom.

People in Northern Ireland stoically resisted a campaign of republican violence throughout the 30 years of the Troubles. But the reasons for this understandable hunkering down are long gone. The battlefield is now cultural and unionism is losing.