UK

‘She took risks for peace’: Truss, Johnson and May lead Commons tributes to queen

Jeffrey Donaldson says monarch led by example in Northern Ireland and reached out the hand of friendship

Britain's King Charles III has his first audience with prime minister Liz Truss at Buckingham Palace, London, following the death of Queen Elizabeth II on Thursday. Photograph: Yui Mok/PA

Denis Staunton
Fri Sep 9 2022 - 20:07

Liz Truss and her predecessors Boris Johnson and Theresa May have led tributes in the House of Commons as Britain entered a period of mourning for Queen Elizabeth II. The prime minister said the queen’s devotion to duty was an example to everyone and that she had reinvented the monarchy for the modern age.

Mr Johnson said that like countless people across the country, he felt a sudden access of unexpected emotion on the death of the queen, an almost familial sense of loss.

“Perhaps it is partly that she has always been there: a changeless human reference point in British life; the person who — all the surveys say — appears most often in our dreams; so unvarying in her pole-star radiance that we have perhaps been lulled into thinking that she might be in some way eternal,” he said.

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He spoke of the burden that had been placed on her as a 25 year-old woman as she was asked to be the living embodiment of the history, unity and continuity of the country and to be “the keystone in the vast arch of the British state”. He said her indomitability, humour, work ethic and sense of history had made him call her Elizabeth the Great.

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“When I call her that, I should add one final quality, of course: her humility — her single-bar-electric-fire, Tupperware-using refusal to be grand,” he said.

King Charles III has paid tribute to his mother in an emotional first address to the nation in which he praised her warmth and humour. (Reuters)

DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson said the queen had led by example in Northern Ireland and reached out the hand of friendship with the reconciliation process, adding that we are duty bound to build on that foundation. He described the queen’s visit to Ireland in 2011 as groundbreaking and said the warmth with which she was received showed that she was respected beyond her own country.

“Your Majesty, on an island riven by conflict and division, you were a bridge builder, reaching out to those from opposite sides of the divide, and your work of reconciliation helped to heal wounds and to encourage change. Your historic visit to the Republic of Ireland was a cathartic moment in British-Irish relations. The way you conducted yourself, the language you used and the message that you brought helped to lay to rest many of the ghosts of our shared history that have cast their shadows over relationships on these islands for centuries. It is my hope that your passing and the example you set will inspire us to even greater heights and to complete the journey that will bring true healing and reconciliation to our troubled land,” he said.

SDLP leader Colum Eastwood said that “as a leader of Irish nationalism”, he wanted to place on the record his appreciation and respect for the queen’s role in forging new bonds of friendship between “our islands and our people”. He said that she became a victim of the conflict in Northern Ireland after her cousin Lord Mountbatten was murdered by the IRA in 1979.

“She experienced the sharp pain of loss, but in common with the people of Ireland, she took risks for peace and played an enormous role in reconciling the traditions that share our islands,” he said.

“At no time was that more visible than during Queen Elizabeth’s 2011 visit to Ireland. I believe that her visit to the Garden of Remembrance in Dublin, and the way she stretched herself to be an example of a good neighbour to Ireland in those moments, contributed in a very significant way to healing the wounds of our past.”

Denis Staunton

Denis Staunton

Denis Staunton is China Correspondent of The Irish Times

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