Voters are not talking about Irish unity, but many politicians are increasingly thinking about it.
Something interesting has quietly happened on the subject of Irish unification on the way to the general election, even if it is an issue that has barely reared its head in voters’ minds in the campaign.
There are signals – some overt, others less so – that either reflect changes in parties’ positions or, more accurately, illustrate politicians’ growing belief that the unification issue will occupy more time in the years ahead.
Speaking in Belfast in June, former Fine Gael taoiseach Leo Varadkar urged his own party to set Irish unity as an objective and to start preparing the ground for it by planning for “what it might look like”.
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Fine Gael’s manifesto committed to Varadkar’s first call, declaring unity to be its objective. Everything else, though, was about making the existing set of North/South, Anglo/Irish relations work better, rather than upending them.
Fianna Fáil, meanwhile, again voices its core belief that unity “remains a founding value and objective” of the party, stressing it can only be achieved through peaceful means and reconciliation.
Predictably, it focused on the Shared Island project, promising an extra €1 billion.
Started quietly by Micheál Martin in 2020, and initially disliked intensely by some of his own people who saw it as too meagre a position for the party to hold, it has grown substantially in the years since.
And it has achieved significant unionist buy-in exactly because it is not putting Irish unity front and centre, but rather has been deliberately created to be unthreatening, focused on practical changes, not ideology.
Before the election, the SDLP’s New Ireland Commission wrote to Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, Sinn Féin, the Green Party, the Labour Party and the Social Democrats “as the parties most likely to play a significant role” in post-election coalition negotiations.
The commission, now led by the former SDLP party leader, Colum Eastwood, sought “a clear pledge” from all to set unity as an objective, “alongside deliverable commitments to advancing this important work”.
Unsurprisingly, Sinn Féin is the clearest, wanting immediate and substantial preparations by the Irish Government and for pressure to be applied on London – both from Dublin and internationally – to hold a Border poll by 2030.
In ways, however, it is the positions of the smaller parties that are more interesting, especially the Labour Party and the Social Democrats, since both are pushing in different ways for a Dublin push behind unification.
The presence of either in post-election coalition talks with Fianna Fáil, or Fine Gael, if that were to happen – and it is an if – would see unification attracting more attention after the vote than it ever did before.
The Labour pledges, the fruits of a year’s work, are the most detailed. Calling for planning now, it says the next Irish government must “recognise that a unity referendum“ could be held within the next decade.
“Only the Irish State can lead on the political and administrative processes leading towards a unity referendum, so this task will have to be taken up by the next government to ensure adequate preparation,” says the Labour pledge.
Like Sinn Féin, it insists that a Green Paper should be prepared by the next administration outlining options, followed quickly by a White Paper that would draw conclusions ahead of the drafting of legislation.
A department of unification should be established – first under the taoiseach’s direct control in the next Dáil, but “moving towards a standalone senior ministry in advance of a referendum”.
[ Sinn Féin pledges unity referendums can happen by 2030Opens in new window ]
Significant contact will be needed with the European Union on proposals for reintegrating Northern Ireland back into the union well ahead of any Border poll being called, says the document.
A “significant portion” of the Future Ireland Fund – estimated ahead of the election and before Donald Trump won the White House to be worth €100 billion by 2035 – should be set aside to pay for unity.
“Everything has changed since Brexit. There is interest now in unification that was not there before and that is only going to grow, and politics in the Republic needs to reflect that,” one informed Labour source told The Irish Times.
Meanwhile, the Social Democrats pledge in their manifesto that “supporting the unification of our island will be an important objective” for the party if it forms parts of the next coalition.
“We are still missing a roadmap for how to get there,” it says. “New and stronger arguments must be presented to persuade a majority to vote for it and people should be able to see a solid plan for what would happen after unification.”
The Greens commit to “working toward a consensus”, though the commission notes it does not set out steps to bring unity about, even if it “does recognise ‘the evolving political and demographic landscape’”.
So far, some unionists have taken comfort, or they have been told to take comfort from the fact that unity has been absent, and that neither Fine Gael, nor Fianna Fáil are pushing for a Border poll quickly, or otherwise.
The Belfast Agreement is both clear and unclear on the timing for such a poll, and the conditions under which it might be called.
The 1998 treaty states it “is for the people of Ireland alone, by agreement between the two parts respectively” to decide “subject to the agreement and consent of a majority of the people of Northern Ireland”.
The last part of the last sentence is especially interesting because it highlights a little-understood point briefly mentioned by Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald on Friday – a referendum in the Republic is not legally necessary.
However, it has been generally understood up to now that one would have to be held south of the Border, and, politically, it would be difficult to see how such change could happen without one.
A decision on the holding of a Border poll in Northern Ireland lies with the Northern Ireland Secretary of State, who “shall” call a referendum “at any time it appears likely to him that a majority of those voting” would back unification.
The mechanics of this judgment will be increasingly challenged in the years ahead, especially after the next Westminster election if more nationalist or republican MPs are elected to the House of Commons.
Irish unity, it is true, is far from voters’ lips, but an increasing number of politicians who will be in the next Dáil are now convinced that the issue will consume more hours in coming years than in the past.
