Party’s advances in Northern Ireland contrast with slump in Ireland, while new Labour government is keen to bury issue
The UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, with the Northern Ireland secretary, Hilary Benn , meeting the president of Sinn Féin, Mary Lou McDonald, and Northern Ireland's first minister, Michelle O'Neill , at Stormont in Belfast.The UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, with the Northern Ireland secretary, Hilary Benn , meeting the president of Sinn Féin, Mary Lou McDonald, and Northern Ireland's first minister, Michelle O'Neill , at Stormont in Belfast.
Last month Leo Varadkar, the former taoiseach, said the next Irish government must prepare for a referendum on Irish unification. Last week Ivana Bacik, the leader of Ireland’s Labour party, wrote to Keir Starmer saying “work must begin to take place now” on a poll.In fact, the prospect remains remote. Sinn Féin’s symbolic breakthroughs in Northern Ireland do not represent a surge in support for unification, which has stalled.
Hilary Benn, the new secretary of state for Northern Ireland, has echoed his boss’s declaration last year that a referendum was “not on the horizon”. Benn has rebuffed calls to spell out the exact criteria for calling a referendum – potentially a mix of opinion polls, election results and demographics – which clouds the goalposts in a convenient mist.
Approximately 15% of people vote for Alliance, which takes no position on unity, though most of its supporters have long been perceived as soft unionists. Gerry Carlile, the head of, which advocates a referendum, challenged that assumption.
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