Sinn Féin MEPs ask EU to help with Ireland unification plans | Sinn Féin Press Office
Increasingly popular and influential Irish political party Sinn Fein has asked the EU to help unite the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland and to help break up the United Kingdom.
“The preparatory work on Irish Unity needs to begin now, and it needs to begin as a matter of urgency,” said Sinn Fein MEPs Lynn Boylan in a conference on the topic that took place in the European Parliament in Brussels.
“The EU institutions will have a crucial role to play in any future referendum on Irish Unity, and it is incumbent upon them to make clear what financial and political supports they will put in place in the event of a successful referendum, to ease the transition from partition to unity,” she added.
In Brussels, Declan Kearney, the Sinn Fein national chairperson, said: “Colonial rule, partition, and separate states in Ireland have all failed. Unity, through self-determination, is the way forward.”
Sinn Fein leadership has called for a simultaneous Irish unity referendum by 2030. If a majority in Northern Ireland appears inclined toward a united Ireland, their secretary of state must call a referendum as per the Belfast or Good Friday Agreement.
At the same time, a border poll must be held in the Republic. Polls show significant support for reunification, but voters in Northern Ireland mostly favour remaining in the UK.
A stunt leading nowhere
According to a The Telegraph report this Friday, Sinn Fein’s statement on the need for the EU to prepare for a referendum on constitutional change on the island of Ireland caused an irate reaction from the Unionists.
“The recent general election in the Irish Republic showed there was little appetite for Irish unity, with Sinn Fein failing spectacularly, falling from red-hot favourites for government to also-rans,” Lord Dodds, the Democratic Unionist Party peer, told The Telegraph.
“Sinn Fein alone is talking it up. This latest stunt will get nowhere with the people who matter here in Northern Ireland,” he added.
Jim Allister, the Traditional Unionist Voice party leader and MP for North Antrim, said Sinn Fein’s demands did not surprise him. He added that the Northern Ireland Protocol on post-Brexit trading was meant to “further the plan of separatists to break up the UK.”
A generation’s great cause
In Philadelphia, Leo Varadkar, Ireland’s former taoiseach (prime minister), told an audience that Irish-Americans’ assistance is required to achieve “this generation’s great cause” of Irish unification.
“Every generation has its great cause. I believe ours is the cause of uniting our island, working to embrace differences instead of trying to erase them – working to build a new home where all traditions, stories, and people belong,” he said.
Before Brexit, Ireland secured a commitment from other EU governments that Northern Ireland would automatically rejoin the EU if Ireland were united.
Polls for The Irish Times and the ARINS project released two months ago revealed support for Irish unity has grown significantly to 34 per cent in Northern Ireland in the past three years.
While some experts believe no one can predict if and when Ireland’s unity will come to fruition, others firmly believe it will happen in a matter of decades, albeit it will only occur if people from both Irelands have no doubt that it will benefit their economies.
