On the 3rd, Northern Ireland resolved a two-year impasse and paved the way for rekindling another, this one more than a hundred years old.
On the first Saturday of February, Michelle O'Neill, from the nationalist Sinn Féin party, which advocates the reunification of Ireland, became the new head of government in Northern Ireland.
Her party, which in the past was the political arm of the terrorist group IRA, received the most votes in the election for the Northern Irish National Assembly in May 2022. However, it failed to form a government.
The legislation establishes that the Northern Ireland Executive must be made up of members of nationalist and unionist parties (which defend the country's permanence in the United Kingdom).
The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) received the second most votes in the 2022 election, but refused to form a government and boycotted the National Assembly for two years because it was contrary to post-Brexit trade rules.
Finally, an agreement was reached, which includes a transfer of 3 billion pounds (almost R$19 billion) from the British government to public services in Northern Ireland.
With O'Neill heading the new government, for the first time since the partition of Ireland in 1921, a nationalist holds the top position in the Northern Irish Executive.
A recent CNBC report highlighted how the new prime minister's family background reflects the blurred lines between Sinn Féin and the IRA in the past: her father was arrested when he was a member of the terrorist group and later became a councilor for the party, while a cousin , also a member of the IRA, was killed by the United Kingdom's Special Air Service (SAS) in 1991.
Now, O'Neill seeks the reunification of Ireland without taking up arms. “There are so many things that are changing. All the old norms, the nature of this state, the fact that a nationalist republican should never be prime minister. All of this indicates change,” O’Neill said in an interview with Sky News.
Last Thursday (8), in a press conference with the international press, Mary Lou McDonald, president of Sinn Féin, stated that a referendum on the island's reunification should be held within ten years.
“Our island has been divided for more than a century. I passionately believe in Irish reunification as the best plan for our economy, our society, our politics and for us to play our role in the world, in the global community,” he said, in response to a question from EFE.
In the same press conference, O'Neill mentioned that Northern Ireland voted to remain in the European Union in the Brexit vote in 2016, but “the British government forced us to leave”.
In the event of a referendum on the island's reunification, he claimed that “some people will assess which union they want to be part of” – the Republic of Ireland is part of the European bloc.
However, the possibility of a referendum displeases both the British government and the unionist allies of the new Northern Ireland Executive.
“Our new agreement gives them [norte-irlandeses] more powers and more funding than they've ever had, so they can help families and businesses across Northern Ireland, and that's everyone's priority now,” British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told Sky News.
“It’s not about [promover] a constitutional change, it is about implementing the day-to-day things that are important to people”, he argued.
Paul Givan, of the DUP and Northern Ireland's newly appointed Education Minister, told the PA News agency that “it is regrettable that when it comes to elections Sinn Féin immediately turns to this issue of a referendum on border”.
“I warned before Michelle O'Neill became Prime Minister to resist the temptation to go down the path of talking about border referendums when we need to focus on health, education and all these day-to-day issues.” , he stated.
“The population wants us to work to resolve these issues, not to be distracted by these constitutional issues,” said Givan.
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