Colin Harvey wrote an article in the Irish News on the 29th August 2025, to which I sent a response to the Irish News Editor, Chris Sherrard, who said it was a “well-written response” and if I was in agreement, he would publish it in its entirety, in the letters section of the paper, to which I agreed. On September 17, 2025, there was still no sign of it, so I emailed the editor and asked why it had not been published. His response was that it fell through the cracks. He apologised and assured me that it would be published the following Tuesday, which would be three weeks after Harvey’s article. I accepted his explanation, and guess what, it never appeared. I responded in a strongly worded “letter” in which I said that this action or lack thereof showed a complete lack of editorial integrity. I got an email from one of Sherrard’s underlings. It seems that Sherrard did not have the professional courtesy to respond to my letter directly. The Underling suggested that he would publish a redacted/edited version in the paper. I emailed him back with a polite “f” off. It seems that Mr Sherrard wants to protect his readership from alternative and insurgent political voices about our collective futures. A question in my letter that he did not answer is “When does a newspaper become waste paper?” Below is the link to Harvey’s article.
Put the cursor on the link, Ctrl and left-click twice, then left-click on Research is breaking. My response, done on the 31st of August and starts below.
Declan Kearney commented on Professor Harvey’s article in the Irish News as important, really. I see it as gobbledegook dressed up as a political, social, intellectual, and academic insight. The Professor talks about the final phase of the winnable border poll; it seems I missed the earlier phases.
I agree that political unionism is faltering because they have no real message and a political agenda built on the creation of a siege mentality. I have written about this in a blog called “Unionism Lost in Translation or Just Lost.” My experience of the panel discussions around Irish unification, which I am not against, is that they are more akin to an Evangelical Mega Church get together, where dissent from the political commandments is not tolerated, and any challenge or insurgent thinking from the outside is simply ignored. The debate around the Subvention by Professor John Doyle is typical of this, where a panel of two people were singing from the same hymn sheet, unchallenged. A strategy which I would call a “Mushroom Strategy.” Brendan O’Leary speaks anecdotally and makes unsubstantiated assertions when waxing lyrically about Irish unification. The Professor talks about planning for a new and united Ireland without defining or giving the public a hint of what will be new in this “New Ireland”. I call this akin to a snake oil salesman selling an economic and political utopia, and believe me, there is no such place, political or otherwise. Just to add, he seems, as a Human Rights professor, to have also embraced the divisiveness of identity politics.
The Professor uses a demographic dog whistle to indicate that the changing demography will inevitably lead to Irish Unification. He also talks about a national conversation being in a better place; that’s fine if the conversation is with the metaphorical “Man in the Mirror.” He never refers to the complexity of the unification endeavour, politically, future political structure, economically and socially in a new multi-polar world. In addition, he ignores what should be the underlying principle of unification, that is, social cohesion. This is where groups across the Island understand each other and recognise what makes for a tolerant, more equitable and fair society, in addition to enabling people to have a sense of a common enterprise. Here, the Human Rights Professor fails to describe a shared social reality. In addition, the professor, as far as I am aware, has said little about the tragic scenes in Ballymena.
His hatred for the English is verging on disturbing, particularly from one who calls himself a Human Rights professor when he uses phrases like “toxic wastelands of poisonous and narrow English nationalism. Does he think he is a “settler”? His rhetoric alienates those on the so-called other side of the social and political spectrum; also, people like me on the pragmatic and progressive left that do not embrace grubby nationalism of any sort. He talks about the structural constraints of power sharing but ignores a political system, in effect a duopoly, which is designed to perpetuate social, economic and political inertia, in addition to being inhabited by a political class riven with ineptitude.
He never speaks of the working class and wallows in the historical and political narrative that embeds the notion that working-class Billy and working-class Seamus have nothing in common. This is a myth that can no longer be allowed to continue.
PS: Thanks for informing me that “there will not be a united Ireland without a border poll,” that’s a relief; I thought that it was being decided in an arm-wrestling match between someone from the Falls and the Shankill or Michelle and Emma.
Suneil Sharma
71 Galwally Avenue
Belfast
30th August 2025
The Gob 
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