The Alliance Party have launched a new social policy document which calls for more of an effort to stamp out naked sectarianism and instead promote communal integration within Northern Ireland society.

As part of their ‘Building for a United Community’ framework, the proposals include, among others, the need to construct a new flag for Northern Ireland.

Speaking in a radio interview today Alliance leader David Ford said: “What we have at the moment is a society in which people from two sections use their own symbols to taunt the other side to create difficulties.

“You saw a few years ago in the assembly that we were able to develop the symbol of the flax flowers which is something which united people in both rural and urban areas from all kinds of backgrounds.

“What we say that as part of the efforts to build a united community we also should be looking at the issue of a shared symbol. Not some people wouldn’t still have a regard for the union flag and others wouldn’t have regard for the tricolour, but that there would be symbolism in this society which unites, not just the symbolism that divides.”

The party further stressed in their policy paper that only Alliance rejects the notion that people “must all be pigeonholed into ‘two communities’”.

Instead the party said they wanted to build a united community, “characterised not by communal separation but by sharing”.

A spokesman from Sinn Féin responded by saying that the Alliance policy to try and create a united society where one symbol would be accepted was “absurd”. He said: “To try and create an imaginary identity, where both sides would unite under some common symbol is ludicrous. What should be encouraged is that each identity within our society should be made to feel more confident in who they are and where they come from. Only then can we move forward, in the knowledge that we are different and tackle the issues that arise from that.”

(AMcE)