Like you, Brian, I’m old enough to remember when Sinn Féin took the abstentionist approach to just about every assembly or parliament you could think of in Ireland – before and after partition.

I understand why. Let’s face it, when you believe that your country is under a force or structure of occupation, then why would you either be members of or cooperate with institutions which clearly – or so you believed – underpinned that occupation?

But things change and as they change then so do your long-term strategies and tactics. Non-participation and cooperation – especially if they have gone on for decades – need to be reassessed.

You have to decide if the ‘purity’ of your abstention is actually serving the cause you claim to be representing. In other words, are you better off making at least part of your case from the inside rather than always staring inwards through the windows?

Kevin Madden: Derry’s basic mistakes and lack of workrate have nothing to do with tactics

Brian Feeney: Calling for Sinn Féin to end abstentionism is a distraction from the big picture

Indeed, isn’t there an argument to be made that your very presence in places you’ve absented yourself from for decades can, in fact, become the catalyst for the institutional/constitutional changes you are seeking?

How did you feel in 1982, Brian, when Sinn Féin decided to contest the elections for Jim Prior’s ‘rolling devolution’........

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