DUBLIN: Britain’s vote to leave the EU has sparked a debate after Irish nationalists called for a referendum on reunification less than two decades after Northern Ireland’s historic peace deal.
After last June’s Brexit referendum outcome, Irish nationalists instantly began clamouring for a so-called border poll to allow people in Northern Ireland to vote on Irish reunification.
When Britain leaves the EU its only land border with the bloc will be between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, which people can currently cross freely.
The impact of such a change has prompted Brussels to make Ireland once of its top priorities for Brexit negotiations, less than 20 years since a hard-won peace accord ended decades of violence in Northern Ireland.
EU leaders at a summit in Brussels last month said Northern Ireland would be automatically welcomed back into the bloc if it ever voted to become part of the Republic, although the prospect is currently far off despite rallying cries from Irish nationalists.
Ireland’s Foreign Minister Charlie Flanagan told the BBC this week that the Brexit vote “may well” have made a referendum more likely but dismissed the prospect saying: “That time is not now.”
“I don’t believe that a debate now on the merits or otherwise of a united Ireland is timely or appropriate.
“I don’t believe that we should conflate the issue of the reunification of Ireland with the withdrawal of the UK from the European Union.”
Brexit has however brought back reunification as a talking point, in a society where bitter political, historical, cultural and socio-economic divisions between pro-British, mainly Protestant, unionists and pro-Irish, mainly Catholic, nationalists are still readily apparent.
In the United Kingdom’s June 2016 referendum on its EU membership — in which British, Irish and Commonwealth residents could vote — some 52 percent voted to leave the bloc.
But within Northern Ireland, on a 63 percent turnout — the lowest in the kingdom — some 56 percent voted for the UK to remain in the EU.
The Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein, once the political arm of the Irish Republican Army paramilitary group, has called for a border poll in the next five years.
“Brexit has changed everything,” Sinn Fein European Parliament member Matt Carthy told a recent party gathering.
“The prospect of the north being dragged out of the European Union against the democratically expressed wishes of people there has horrified citizens across the political spectrum,” he said.
The possibility of a referendum is provided for in the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which ended three decades of armed conflict in Northern Ireland.
However, any such referendum could only be held if the British government approved the move.
Unlike in Scotland, where opinions are more evenly divided on seceding from the UK, the polls in Northern Ireland indicate overwhelming support for the union.
The most recent one in September showed 63 percent in favor.
From its creation in 1921, Northern Ireland’s in-built Protestant majority has always expressed an antipathy toward what it regarded as a southern Irish state too closely aligned to the Catholic Church.
But, as former British prime minister Tony Blair, who negotiated the 1998 peace accords, said Saturday, Brexit marks the first time that the UK and the Republic have “not been in step with each other.”
But Irish nationalists argue that as a majority in Northern Ireland voted Remain in the EU referendum, including many unionists, this in itself is enough to warrant a testing of the waters.
Their case was bolstered in Northern Ireland regional assembly elections in March when a nationalist surge ended the unionist majority for the first time and further victories in the June 8 UK general election could help.
According to Dublin-based political commentator Johnny Farrell, a lot will depend on the shape of the Brexit deal.
“If things go badly for Britain then the situation could change very, very quickly because people in Northern Ireland could decide their economic interests are served better by remaining part of Europe by voting for a united Ireland,” he said.
Brexit sparks debate on united Ireland vote
Brexit sparks debate on united Ireland vote
US ‘totally stupid’ to attack Iran during talks: UN ambassador
- “War was not our option. War was imposed on Iran,” Bahreini told UN correspondents
- “Nobody should expect Iran to show restraint in front of aggression”
GENEVA: The United States made a “totally stupid decision” to attack Iran while in negotiations, and betrayed Gulf nations by trashing their diplomatic efforts, Tehran’s UN ambassador said Tuesday.
Ali Bahreini, Iran’s ambassador in Geneva, insisted Tehran had no problem with its neighbors, but could not let US bases in the Gulf be used as launchpads for attacks on Iran.
“War was not our option. War was imposed on Iran,” Bahreini told UN correspondents.
“Nobody should expect Iran to show restraint in front of aggression.
“We will continue our defense until the point that this aggression is stopped,” he said.
On February 26, Washington and Tehran held indirect negotiations in Geneva on Iran’s nuclear program — with the Omani mediators reporting “significant progress.”
Bahreini was present for part of those talks and said “everybody was optimistic” and the US team “agreed to continue negotiations” in Vienna this week.
But Bahreini said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had convinced US President Donald Trump to destroy diplomacy and attack Iran, with strikes starting on Saturday.
“It was a totally stupid decision. They will know in the future how stupid this decision has been. Both of them will understand, because Iran will firmly determine the situation and the destiny of this war,” he said.
“All our neighbors are now disappointed with the betrayal of the United States because everybody was working for diplomacy, particularly Oman.
“The US betrayed everybody.”
- ‘Not a regional war’ -
Tehran has launched strikes against countries in the region that host US bases.
“I cannot accept labelling what we are doing as reprisal. What we are doing is a kind of self-defense,” said Bahreini.
The ambassador said Iran’s problem was not with its neighbors, describing the Gulf countries as friends.
“We are in daily dialogue with our neighbors to convey to them the message that this war is not a war against our neighbors.
“This is not a regional war.
“But we cannot ignore the fact that the US bases in their lands are operational against us.
“In no way we can allow those bases to be used to make military operations against Iran.”
He said Iran’s operations were “exclusively” against US military targets, and said “there has been very serious order given to our military forces not to make any harm to civilians.”
Trump claimed Tuesday that the Iranian leadership “want to talk” but Bahreini insisted no approach had been made to Washington, saying “there hasn’t been any contact from our side” since the war erupted.
