Derry Journal Editorial: Ignore the masses at your peril

Enough is enough. That was the clear and unequivocal message delivered from rallies in Derry and elsewhere, with the Secretary of State and the DUP coming in for almost universal criticism as public sector workers detailed how they were struggling to cope in the current cost of living crisis and felt like they were being treated as a political football.

There was anger and criticism this week beyond the picket lines too. In the Assembly chamber on Wednesday we heard from the elected MLAs from other parties who remain locked out of the chamber and who are being prevented from making interventions and decisions which could improve the lives of people here at a time when those interventions and decisions are so badly needed.

This cannot stand. If that wasn’t abundantly clear already, then the fact that so many took to the streets in sub zero temperatures, that people from all backgrounds and walks of life stood shoulder to shoulder and demanded that they be seen and heard will have made it so.

You can’t eat a Protocol. You can’t heat your home with it. Nor will it clothe and provide for your family. And yet we are told time and again that this dream of a revision of the already revised agreement, a protocol agreed by the UK government and dozens of nations across Europe, is so pivotal that everything else can wait. It can’t wait. The masses who took the streets on Thursday made that clear.

They were there for their pay rise but they were also there for the patients in their care, the children in their classrooms, their colleagues and for all who are suffering and facing crisis and hardship.

The people have spoken. Ignore them at your peril.