A united Ireland must extend the same rights and freedoms to unionists as to nationalists, north Belfast SDLP assembly member Alban Maginness said last night (Monday).
With Easter Monday an appropriate time "to reflect on how to bring about the unity of our country", Mr Maginness said it was clear that a united Ireland "will be achieved peacefully and by consent".
Mr Maginness added that the
SDLP was the "only party that has set out the model for the unity of our country".
"Our vision of unity is based upon equality," he said.
"We believe that the same protections afforded to nationalists under the agreement must equally be extended to unionists in a united Ireland.
"That is why the SDLP would keep the executive and the assembly in the radically changed context of a united Ireland where our MPs would not be elected to Westminster but to the Dail."
Mr Maginness said that this would be the only system of government that is "right in principle" and "workable in practice".
"We will only achieve a united Ireland if we can persuade a majority in the north of its strengths and reassure others that their interests will be protected," he said.
"It is only by keeping the structures of the agreement in a united Ireland that we can succeed in doing this."
A united Ireland "won down the barrel of a gun" or "purely by demographic change" would never work, Mr Maginness added.
"Only the SDLP has a realistic strategy for unity based on persuasion, based on reassurance, and based on the rock solid basis of the Good Friday Agreement," he said.
"And because of our record of persuasion and our history of non- violence, only we can achieve that unity.
"The road to unity is through the agreement. It is in the interests of all nationalists that everything is done to restore the agreement's democratic institutions.
"Everyone knows what that requires. It would be a tragedy if any nationalist party allowed the dogma of the past to prevent us achieving the unity that we all deserve."
