INNL Gary Gibbon Tory conf 2023
Channel 4's political editor Gary Gibbon speaks to the News Letter editor Ben Lowry about the low profile for Northern Ireland at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester on Tuesday October 3 2023
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00:00 Gary Gibbon, you've been coming for Channel 4 News to these conferences for decades,
00:04 and I get the sense, particularly this year, Northern Ireland's barely on the radar at all.
00:08 I'm finding very few events where it's even mentioned, or seminars or anything like that.
00:13 It's very rare for Northern Ireland to be this invisible in party conference season,
00:19 but it is pretty much invisible.
00:22 On the very fringes you can find people who are very interested in Northern Ireland,
00:26 there aren't many, the parties haven't come over in strength, DUP used to come over.
00:32 You do find some people who have a running conversation about whether Geoffrey Donaldson
00:36 might or might not take the DUP back into Stormont.
00:40 You find some people in the Conservative Party who are fingers crossed that he will,
00:44 because that would round off, as they see it, the Soonax achievement with the Windsor framework.
00:49 But basically, it's not really getting talked about.
00:52 Very quickly, why do you think that is?
00:56 Too many other problems?
00:59 I think, you don't get the impression, sometimes the DUP have come to these conferences
01:05 in numbers, with a shopping list, a minority Tory administration maybe,
01:10 and they've had some...