Consensus growing for all-Ireland forum on Irish unity

A growing consensus is emerging that all-Ireland forum on Irish unity should be convened as a step towards planning for the reunification of Ireland.

Last week Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said moderate unionists and nationalists could be spurred to consider a united Ireland if there is a no-deal Brexit. Speaking at the Glenties summer school, he said that the government ‘might initiate’ a forum on Irish unity, but stopped short of saying his government was making preparations for such a development.

A forum on unity was recommended two years ago by a report of the Dublin parliament’s Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement, but it failed to gain the interest of Varadkar’s government at the time.

Mr Varadkar has said those unionists uncomfortable with a “nationalistic” Britain might now join forces to support Irish unity and continued membership of the EU. But he claimed it would be “provocative” for the Dublin government to have a green paper [government discussion document] or a forum on Irish unity now.

“We have always been trying to make the point that what we are trying to achieve with Brexit and the withdrawal agreement is the status quo,” he said. “People being able to continue to live their lives and trade as they do now.”

Anything stronger could play into the view that Dublin is exploiting Brexit, he said, before adding: “That obviously could change in the event of a hard Brexit. Those questions will arise whether we like it or not, and we have to be ready for it.”

Responding to the comments, Sinn Féin’s Mary Lou McDonald said that “there is nothing provocative about wanting a United Ireland” and “that the government has a responsibility to lead from the front in delivering Irish unity”.

She added: “There is a momentum building for Irish unity and we need political, institutional and legislative arrangements in place to manage that. That preparation must include the convening of an all-Ireland forum on Irish unity without delay.”