Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
A Sinn Fein Taoiseach still glorifying IRA actions will set back Irish unity by 30 years
Inclusion the key to ending partition Eastwood: Border poll in next decade
A SINN Fein Taoiseach attending IRA commemorations would set back a united Ireland by another 30 years, SDLP leader Colum Eastwood has argued.
The Foyle MP said you cannot end partition “when you keep rubbing people’s noses in the violence and ugliness of the past”.
Mr Eastwood told the Mirror he is convinced there will be a border poll “within this decade”.
And he urged people to build a “vision of the future that is progressive, outwardlooking, new, vibrant and based on bringing all of our community together”.
Sinn Fein won the popular vote in the Republic’s General Election last year and polls suggests the party could be on the cusp of being in government next time around.
Party leader Mary Lou Mcdonald has previously defended her attendance at events commemorating IRA members, saying it was “essential to remember”.
Mr Eastwood was asked how he would feel about a Sinn Fein Taoiseach attending IRA commemorations, and what impact this would have on campaigning for a united Ireland.
He said: “If Mary Lou Mcdonald were Taoiseach and still glorifying Provisional IRA actions when we have people in our community living with the result of that, then that will actually put the cause of Irish unity back another 30 years.
“I think the IRA’S campaign of violence put the cause of Irish unity almost beyond our reach.
“Things have changed since we’ve had peace and since Brexit and everything else
“But the idea that you can change people’s minds on unity and also glorify violence of the past, it just doesn’t add up.”
Mr Eastwood added nationalists should remember it will be people who are “agnostic” on the constitutional question who need to be persuaded.
He said: “We won’t convince them by talking and glorifying the past.
“We will convince them by giving them a vision of the future that is progressive, outward-looking, new, vibrant and based upon bringing all of our community together, where we respect the unionist and British tradition and we’re able to work hand-in-hand with them to build a new kind of society.
“But when you keep rubbing people’s noses in the violence and ugliness of the past, then all you’re doing is stopping yourself achieve the aims you say you want to achieve.”
Amid the Brexit fall-out, Mr Eastwood said he believes the “United Kingdom is coming to an end”.
He added: “That puts an enormous amount of pressure on those of us who are charged with political leadership to manage that, and not do it in any way that’s about waving a flag, or trying to right some old wrong.
“It’s not about the
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past, it’s about the future. It’s about providing a vision for the future that is exciting for people.”
Last July, the SDLP announced plans to create an inclusive forum called the New Ireland Commission to discuss future constitutional arrangements on the island of Ireland.
Mr Eastwood said: “I think it’s very important the British or unionist perspective is very much within the conversation.
“The fact of Brexit now happening has changed the whole dynamic and the speed of the conversation.
“We’re now in a very different place.
“I think people’s minds are now more open to that conversation.”
The Commission was supposed to be launched in the summer, but Mr Eastwood said the Covid-19 pandemic delayed their plans.
On Brexit, he said it was “laughable” to hear the DUP blame parties like the SDLP, who were opposed to leaving the EU, for the disruption to some trade between Britain and Northern Ireland.
He added he believes the issues can be resolved, but this was a consequence of Brexit.
Mr Eastwood said: “It’s because people in England decided that they wanted to close themselves off from the rest of the world.
“The people who cheer-led that, like the DUP, have only got themselves to blame. Now, I’m not happy about that – I didn’t want an economic border in the
Irish Sea.” Mr Eastwood added if Brexit had to happen it should have been a soft Brexit, but the British Government “decided not to do that either”.
He said Northern Ireland Protocol under which the region continues to follow some EU rules “is only there as a mitigating measure to protect us from a hard border in Ireland”.
Mr Eastwood added: “Of course we have a route back to the EU if people choose to take it in the future.”
He said the UK government gave businesses little time to prepare for the changes and opposed an extension to the transition period.
He added: “The idea people were going to be ready when a deal was only signed off in the dying days of 2020 that had to be put in place on the first day of 2021 was fantasy.
“We, of course, were the people who proposed there would be an extension to this period, and the British government and others opposed that.
“People need to think beyond next week when they’re taking these big strategic decisions on things like Brexit and the Protocol or anything else.
“In the short term, this is going to be very difficult and we warned against that.”
Mr Eastwood criticised the DUP and Sinn Fein over their handling of the
Covid-19 in the Executive, saying it has “really damaged devolution”. He said: “People should have been able to expect that when a pandemic hit the old bitterness and rivalries would be put to one side and people would get on with the job. That hasn’t happened.
“The DUP and Sinn Fein have continued in the same vein before the Assembly collapsed.
“People should be able to expect more and we will provide an alternative
“It has really damaged devolution that in the middle of a pandemic we still have the bickering and fighting and the inability to get together in a quiet room and sort the problems out.
“People have had enough of that. I think Covid has exacerbated that.”
He added the SDLP still wants to be in the five-party Executive but “won’t be taken for granted”.
Mr Eastwood said: “We’re in government because we want to be in government. We want to deliver for people.
“The DUP and Sinn Fein don’t have a great track record of course of treating others very well within the Executive, and there’s only so far they can push people is all I’m saying.”
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