[2] In response, the Derry-based leaders of the Catholic, Presbyterian, Anglican and Methodist churches published a joint statement in support of a university for the city.
It recommended locating a "New University of Ulster" in the small town of Coleraine, in a strongly Protestant area on the north coast, and this decision was immediately supported by the Government.
[5] Robert Samuel Nixon, UUP MP for North Down, claimed in May that several prominent Derry-based unionists had opposed building the new university in their own city.
The majority of them claimed that they had simply accepted a decision which had already been made and had lobbied for Magee College to remain open, and Nixon was expelled from the UUP Parliamentary group.
John Hume subsequently claimed that the decision not to build the new university in Derry was the immediate cause of the Northern Ireland civil-rights movement and ended any hope of a peaceful solution to sectarian divides in the state.