Crunch talks to avert Irish chaos
Victorious Sinn Fein raises pressure for a border poll but ministers say Brexit protocol is the biggest issue
SINN Fein began ramping up the pressure for a vote on Irish reunification last night after its dramatic election success.
The party’s president, Mary Lou McDonald, said preparations for a border poll must start immediately and another senior figure said a vote was ‘inevitable’.
However Cabinet ministers dismissed the calls for a referendum and said the most pressing issues were the restoration of the devolved government and changes to the post-Brexit trade deal.
Crunch talks will be held today to try to form a new Stormont administration.
Sinn Fein, once the political wing of the IRA, is the largest party in the Northern Ireland Assembly for the first time.
In Thursday’s elections, it won 27 of the 90 seats, ahead of the Democratic Unionist Party on 25, which means it has the right to nominate a nationalist first minister for the first time.
It cannot do so unless the DUP nominates a deputy first minister – to serve alongside Michelle O’Neill – and the unionist party is boycotting the powersharing executive in protest at the Northern Ireland Protocol.
The DUP last night also warned that the 25-year peace process will be in jeopardy unless the agreement is scrapped.
Foreign Secretary Liz Truss is undercould
‘Change is clearly happening’
stood to be preparing to override the protocol in the belief that the European Union will never agree to changing the Brexit agreement.
Miss McDonald said yesterday: ‘The manifesto that was put forward also had a reiteration of our call for a citizens’ assembly. We have consistently been calling for the meeting of a citizens’ assembly, Ireland-wide, to acknowledge and engage the change that is clearly happening in Ireland.
‘The only one clear demand that I have made consistently for the last number of years is that preparation for constitutional change needs to start. Now the election itself that we’ve just been through demonstrates, I think quite dramatically, the change that’s under way and we want that managed in an orderly, peaceful and democratic fashion.’
Padraig Mac Lochlainn, Sinn Fein representative for Donegal, told Times Radio: ‘If you look at the demographics, the politics of the north, every observer knows that in due course in the not too distant future – it could be five years, it be ten years – a democratic vote will happen for a united Ireland. We need to assure unionists of their safety, of their place in a new Ireland, of the continuance of the relationship with Britain.’
Under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement, a border poll should be called by the UK Government if it believes that a majority appears to support a united Ireland.
Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis claimed that overall the unionist vote was higher but admitted the prospect of a nationalist first minister was a ‘significant moment’. He added: ‘Sinn Fein haven’t gained seats, we haven’t seen a growth in the nationalist vote and indeed the unionist vote is still larger and the number of seats held by unionist parties is still larger.’
Although Sinn Fein is now the largest party in the assembly, its number of seats remained the same as in the previous election – 27 – while the other nationalist party, the SDLP, finished with eight seats after losing four.
And although the DUP lost three seats, taking it from 28 to 25, the unionist UUP lost only one to take nine and the hardline TUV gained one. The centrist Alliance party gained nine seats to take 17.
This allows ministers to claim that there is still no majority for republicans.
Asked by the BBC yesterday if he thought it was the start of the break-up of the United Kingdom, Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab replied: ‘I don’t think so.’ He said the priority was to set up an executive and ‘fix’ protocol issues.
Asked if it was simply Brexit that was damaging the union, he claimed it was instead the result of the ‘particularly dogmatic approach’ that the European Union had taken.
THE seismic election victory of Sinn Fein, the sinister political party which cheered on the IRA’s cold-blooded murderers, will sicken anyone who rejects violence.
Yet a disastrous split in the Unionist vote has seen them become the northern Ireland Assembly’s largest party for the first time.
though unpalatable, it is a pitfall of the democracy we rightly treasure.
But encouragingly, their seat tally and vote share did not improve on the last election.
Inevitably, Sinn Fein is already demanding a referendum on Irish reunification, but there is no evidence of a majority for that.
the truth is, people in the Province care more about politicians fixing their huge social problems – creaking health system, housing shortages, unemployment.
the first ticking timebomb to defuse, however, is the DUP’s threat to continue boycotting the executive until the flawed northern Ireland protocol is ditched.
this post-Brexit agreement effectively places a border down the Irish Sea. But inflexible EU customs checks have severely stunted trade, fuelling Unionist resentment.
If Stormont does not sit, old sectarian tensions will reignite – jeopardising peace.
Boris Johnson must persuade the DUP to end its petulance, while urging Brussels to overhaul how the protocol works.
During Brexit talks, the EU insisted its priority was to maintain stability in Ireland. they must now live up to their word.
■ WHEN the Government announced the BBC licence fee freeze, director general tim Davie bleated that it would trigger brutal cuts to popular shows. Yet despite those dire warnings, the broadcaster is blowing £50million to find out which programmes audiences don’t like. not another pointless spending spree with our money! Couldn’t Auntie just check the viewing figures instead?