The Ulster Unionist Party leader Mike Nesbitt delivers his main address at the UUP 2025 conference. In this clip he talks about the destabilising nature of Brexit and the rise of English nationalism and the threat it poses to Northern Ireland unionists. Video by Belfast News Letter editor Ben Lowry taken at the Crowne Plaza hotel at Shaw's Bridge in south Belfast on October 11 2025
00:00So, to talk about border poll, when I was first elected to Storm in 2011, I don't recall any talk about border poll or the constitutional question, not in the debate in chamber, not in the tea rooms, not in the corridors, that's because David Trimble and his great party secured an agreement in 98 and put the constitutional question to bed.
00:22Until Brexit, the most destabilising event of my political life, and I don't forget the Aguilar's agreement in 1985.
00:33So, for fans of the moving four weddings and a funeral, Brexit would be my, what I call, four ironies and a paradox.
00:41So, ARRI won, the biggest obstacle for Irish unification for people like us was the IRA, because their bombs and bullets were an attempt to coerce us with something we did not want.
00:52It was never ever under work, not least because of the bravery and the sacrifice of our people, some of whom are in this room today.
01:02ARRI too, the organisation that's got most of the constitutional question back on the agenda, is the DEP, not least for that full-throated support for Brexit.
01:15ARRI three, unionists don't always recognise that one of the people who understands that nobody is really ready for border poll, this is each other from the whole world.
01:24Hence his focus on shared island rather than a referendum.
01:29And ARRI four is that while unionists have always been over our shoulders, Irish nationalists, that's the biggest threat to Northern Ireland's place in the UK.
01:37Irish nationalists have been knocked off in all men's law by English nationalism.
01:43Last time I joined our team at Westminster, I was struck by the number of MPs supporting lapel bites, not with the flag of the UK, but with the flag of St. George.
01:53And since then of course, waving the flag of England has become a campaign for many English people.
01:59Like Brexit, they see it as another campaign to take back control.
02:05At the same time I read of one English nationalist enemy attacking Scotland for their block ground, and therein lies the danger.
02:15Our annual subversion, 19 billion pounds, is a very significant sum of money.
02:21It could build hospitals and constituencies of English nationalists.
02:26It could put bobbies on the beats of their clients and their villagers.
02:31It could put classical assistants in with the children of the people who voted them into power.
02:36That is the real danger of supporting the sort of right wing parties other leaders currently find so popular.
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