Sinn Féin: vote on Irish reunification must follow no-deal Brexit

Sinn Féin: vote on Irish reunification must follow no-deal Brexit

Mary Lou McDonald steps up call for referendum before meeting Boris Johnson

Jessica Elgot Chief political correspondent

@jessicaelgot

Wed 31 Jul 2019 09.43 BST Last modified on Wed 31 Jul 2019 10.02 BST

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/jul/31/sinn-fein-border-poll-ireland-unity-must-follow-no-deal-brexit

Sinn Féin’s Mary Lou McDonald said prospect of a no-deal Brexit had ‘focused minds’ in Northern Ireland. Photograph: Liam McBurney/PA

A no-deal Brexit must be followed by a poll on potential Irish reunification, the leader of Sinn Féin has said before her meeting with Boris Johnson, arguing that no one could argue that fundamental circumstances had not changed.

Mary Lou McDonald, who will speak with the prime minister at Stormont on Wednesday morning, said the prospect of a no-deal Brexit had “focused minds” in Northern Ireland and that a border poll would be justifiable, despite outward opposition from Dublin.

She said the British government could not argue that conditions had not changed if Johnson pursued leaving the EU on 31 October without a deal.

“In the event of a crash Brexit, I don’t know for the life of me how anyone could sustain an argument that the status quo could pertain,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

 “I don’t know how the government could crash this part of Ireland out of the EU with all of the harm and damage, economically and politically, and with a straight face, suggest to any of us who live on this island, that we should not be given the democratic opportunity, as per the Good Friday agreement, to decide our future. I think that would be quite scandalous.”

Speaking earlier on the programme, the DUP chief whip, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, said he believed there was a significant chance of a no-deal Brexit but that the outcome would be down to Irish and EU intransigence. He also played down the prospect of a border poll.

“I think given the response of the Irish government in particular who I believe are key to this issue of addressing UK concerns about the backstop, I think the prospect of a no deal is significant,” he said.

Donaldson said warnings of 40,000 job losses in Northern Ireland were at the “very high end of the scale”.

He added: “We do recognise that no deal is not good in the short term for our economy in Northern Ireland and, to be clear, it’s not something we’re working towards.

“We’ve always been consistent in our approach on Brexit which is we want to see the UK leaving the EU with a deal, but the deal that’s on the table at the moment is clearly unacceptable, not just to us, but to a majority on three occasions in the House of Commons.”

Donaldson said Johnson was “right to take a tough line” on the impossibility of any deal that still contained the backstop passing the House of Commons.

“We are clear that the problem with the withdrawal agreement is the backstop and it’s not just a problem for Northern Ireland, it’s a problem for the UK as a whole and we want to see a more flexible and pragmatic approach taken by the EU. We still believe it’s possible to get a deal and we are urging the EU to step forward and to discuss with the UK government how we can achieve that,” he said.

“Taking a softer approach to the EU didn’t work for the last prime minister and I think that the line that the prime minister is taking now is one that is more likely to get us to a deal in October than the previous approach.”

Johnson spent Tuesday night dining with Donaldson, as well as the DUP leader, Arlene Foster, and her deputy leader, Nigel Dodds, which No 10 sources said was a discussion about the DUP’s confidence and supply agreement with the Conservatives, not Northern Ireland power-sharing talks. The Northern Ireland secretary, Julian Smith, was not present.

The prime minister will hold bilateral meetings with the five main parties at Stormont on Wednesday morning, amid deadlock in the latest talks process.

Ahead of his meetings in Belfast, Johnson said he would do everything in his power to help the parties reach agreement to restore the executive. He said he would “obviously attach huge importance to the letter, spirit of the Belfast Good Friday agreement and will be insisting on that.”

Asked how impartial he could be given the Tory links to the DUP and the private dinner he hosted for the party’s leaders Tuesday night, he said: “It’s all there in the Good Friday agreement. We believe in complete impartiality and that’s what we are going to observe. But the crucial thing is to get this Stormont government up and running again.”

Johnson talked to the Irish taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, on Tuesday afternoon, the first time the two leaders had spoken since he became prime minister, during which the pair clashed over the reopening of the withdrawal agreement.