Union 'under sustained pressure' warns veteran Tory NI adviser

Lord Caine said the union "is coming under increased and sustained pressure"

The longest-serving Conservative special adviser on Northern Ireland has said he does not believe the union is in "any immediate peril".

But, Lord Caine acknowledged it "is coming under increased and sustained pressure".

He made his comments to a summer school organised by the NI attorney general.

He added that "the period of relative constitutional stability ushered in by the 1998 Agreement is at risk of being seriously undermined".

Lord Caine has advised or worked in some capacity with seven Conservative secretaries of state: Karen Bradley, James Brokenshire, Theresa Villiers, Owen Paterson, Patrick Mayhew, Tom King and Peter Brooke.

He told the summer school he is "the person who has without question spent more time in meetings with Sinn Féin than any other Conservative in British political history".

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In 2016, he was given a peerage, as part of David Cameron's resignation honours list.

Lord Caine, who is from Leeds, started working for the Northern Ireland Office in the 1990s

However, last week it emerged that Julian Smith, the new NI Secretary, had decided not to retain Lord Caine as his adviser, although the move has yet to be confirmed by Downing Street.

'Warning signs'

In his speech to the Belfast summer school, Lord Caine said he thinks if a border poll was to be held today "there would be a comfortable majority for the union".

He believes that view is shared by the Irish government.

Despite that confidence, Lord Caine argued that calling a border poll in the foreseeable future would be "just about the most divisive and destabilising thing that could be done here".

He added it would be "a distraction when the focus really needs to be about restoring the Belfast Agreement institutions and making the 1998 political dispensation work".

The Conservative peer also told the audience he shares the concerns expressed by some of the likely consequences of a border poll being carried on a 50+1 basis.

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Lord Caine argued that Irish unity is not "inevitable", but said unionists cannot ignore what he termed the "clear warning signs".

In his speech, he called for "a grown-up conversation about how we set out a modern, compelling case for the union that reaches out to all generations here and to all parts of the community".

'Selling the UK'

He added that unionists should recognise that "the future strength of the union will rely on ever more acceptance among those of a moderate nationalist background… that their best interests are served by remaining within the United Kingdom".

Lord Caine entered the House of Lords in 2016 with three NI Secretaries he worked for looking on

Lord Caine also said the government "needs to be more pro-active in setting out the benefits that Northern Ireland derives from membership of the United Kingdom".

"Not in any bellicose or partisan way… wrapped in a union flag. But soberly and clearly giving people the facts about what membership of the United Kingdom delivers."

The long-term adviser said that selling the UK is something that, historically, the Northern Ireland Office (NIO) has "never seen as part of its role and seems extremely reluctant to do".

Lord Caine called for this NIO approach to change, claiming that "it is perfectly possible to be a pro-union government… consistent with the consent principle… while continuing to govern impartially and in the interests of the whole community here".