Editorial: Referendum on reunification is up to the people of Ireland, not Britain
The Good Friday Agreement is clear that a Referendum of Ireland’s reunification is up to the people of Ireland and Andy Burnham’s remarks that this issue was ‘off the table’ during his first official engagement with politicians in the north were, to put it mildly, ill-judged and tone deaf.
The days of senior politicians in Britain making decisions and calling the shots on the future of people here is coming to an end.
Momentum is building towards a reunited Ireland and despite the public protestations of some unionist leaders, they will be well aware of that fact.
There is no going back to a partisan statelet that left the nationalist population in the north post-Partition at the mercy of an all too often merciless regime.
Yes, there are major pressing matters here – widespread poverty, the cost of living crisis and the crisis in the health care system chief among them – but none of these issues can be divorced from the legacy of partition of this island, and none of these issues can be treated as being entirely separate from the constitutional question. Partition has cost the people of this island, and particularly the people in north west and along the border region, dearly.
For many nationalists Stormont is a stop-gap towards a new Ireland, an Ireland of equals in which everyone is treated the same regardless of background and beliefs; a new Ireland in which the prosperity, opportunities and wealth enjoyed and jealously guarded by a a minority is re-distributed fairly.
It is for the people of Ireland to decide and direct on their future, and no-one else.