Ireland: on the road to unification?

We seem to be edging closer to the breakup of the United Kingdom, said Martin Kettle in The Guardian. Sinn Féin’s success in last week’s general election in Ireland marks a “turning point” for the Republic. Mary Lou McDonald’s party now looks set to be part of either the new government or the main opposition – ending almost a century in which power in Dublin has been “carved up” between the centrist Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil parties. It’s an “astonishing change of fortune” for Sinn Féin, whose links to the terrorist IRA once made it a “virtual pariah in the South”. But while its success may have been largely because of its left-wing policies on housing and health, its unequivocal backing for a united Ireland now makes a referendum on the issue significantly more likely on both sides of the border. Whatever happens, Irish unification is firmly back on the agenda. The former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern thinks a vote on the matter is now “inevitable” within a decade.

Brexit has “spurred on” this shift, said Jennifer Duggan in Time. Under the UK-EU Withdrawal Agreement, there will be an open border for goods between the Republic and Northern Ireland; an economic border will instead be drawn in the Irish Sea. With Northern Ireland having voted 56:44 to Remain, the result will be to drive Belfast and Dublin closer together. But other factors are also at play, said Emma Duncan in The Times. The 1998 Good Friday Agreement (GFA) requires the UK to call a referendum in Northern Ireland when there’s “reason to believe there is a majority for reunification”. Opinion polls are split almost 50:50, but with Catholics expected to outnumber Protestants in the 2021 census, things are “moving in that direction”.

The GFA reconciled some Catholics to staying in the UK, said The Economist. But the agreement also set out a clear “political route to a united Ireland”. And if the people of the North and the Republic “choose that path, the politicians must follow it”. The island of Ireland now needs a “plan” for unification: it needs, for instance, a way to make unionists feel at home in the Republic. That’s not likely if Sinn Féin are in charge, said Eilis O’Hanlon in the Belfast Telegraph. “There have been increasingly giddy predictions from politicians, academics and journalists in recent years that a united Ireland is just around the corner.” But there’s still a long way to go. The Economic and Social Research Council survey shows that, yes, only 52% of people in Northern Ireland wish to stay in the UK – but on the other hand, only 29% say they would actually vote for a united Ireland. To a significant minority of voters, both the UK and the Republic “feel like imperfect answers”.