‘A knife to the heart of the Union’: Brexit reality for Northern Ireland will fuel nationalist hopes for Irish unity | Political news

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Unionists are celebrating Northern Ireland’s centenary in 2021, but a new border in the Irish Sea will fuel nationalist hopes for Irish unity.

To avoid a land border between north and south, the UK and the EU agreed to one at sea, between Northern Ireland and Great Britain.

North Ireland retains access to GB marketBut it is the only part of the UK that remains in the EU single market for goods.

This is not how Prime Minister and DUP leader Arlene Foster wanted to commemorate the centenary, but does not consider irish inevitable unity.

She said: “I am 50 years old. All my life, I have heard people talk about the next united Ireland.

Northern Ireland Prime Minister Arlene Foster
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Arlene Foster said she does not consider Irish unity to be inevitable

“It hasn’t happened and that’s because I know that a lot of people, most of the people in Northern Ireland, know they are much better off in the UK.”

But Vice Premier Michelle O’Neill disagrees. One hundred years after the partition, she considers Brexi like a game changer.

Sinn Fein Deputy Leader said: “I think there is now a difficult question for people here. What union do you want to be part of?

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“I think the stark question for many people is: do you want to be part of an inward-looking narrow Brexit or do you want to be part of a new, open and inclusive Ireland?”

Economically, some think that Northern Ireland has the best of both worlds, still in the EU’s single market for goods, with access to Britain’s market.

But politically, it is hugely symbolic that Northern Ireland is now being treated differently from the rest of the UK and that makes many unionists nervous.

Sinn Fein Deputy Leader Michelle O'Neill cast her vote in the 2019 general election at Patrick's Elementary School in Clonoe, Co. Tyrone.
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Michelle O’Neill said Brexit raises serious questions

“It is the most significant constitutional development since partition,” says Sir Reg Empey, the leading unionist negotiator in the run-up to the Good Friday Agreement.

“I believe that the Northern Ireland Protocol that Boris Johnson proposed is a dagger pointed at the heart of the Union and our task now as Unionists will be to try to recover what we can from this damage.”

With the north-south land border overshadowed by an east-west maritime border, Brexit has certainly not answered the constitutional question.

Northern Ireland remains “a place apart”.

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