Potential No Deal Brexit To Accelerate Irish Reunification Referendum - Sinn Fein Leader

LONDON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 17th October, 2020) Mary Lou McDonald, the leader of the Irish Sinn Fein party, said on Friday that a potential no-deal Brexit between the United Kingdom and the European Union and the implementation of the UK Internal Market Bill will accelerate the "urgent necessity" to hold a referendum on Irish unification.

"Be assured that in the event that there is a crash, a no deal Brexit, in the event the Irish Protocol and the protections are shredded in the way Boris Johnson and his government has suggested, that certainly, without a doubt, will accelerate the urgent necessity to deal with this constitutional issue," McDonald said during an online interview with London-based foreign reporters, hosted by the Foreign Press Association in London.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Friday that the United Kingdom "should get ready" to end the post-Brexit transition period on December 31 without a free trade agreement with the EU, unless the European bloc changes its position on the negotiation table regarding fishing quotas and the level-playing field.

Johnson has also threatened to override the so-called Irish Protocol included in the Brexit agreement with the so-called Internal Market Bill.

The prime minister said the controversial legislation would ensure barrier-free trade between the United Kingdom's four constituent nations in the event current post-Brexit talks are unsuccessful, but the EU has accused the UK of breaching the "good faith" of the bilateral withdrawal deal and endangering the Good Friday agreement that brought peace to Northern Ireland in 1998.

According to the Sinn Fein party leader, Johnson's Internal Market Bill not only divides opinions or feeling between unionists and republicans in Ireland, but its main issue is that it violates international law.

"The Irish Protocol in the Withdrawal Agreement is the minimum that we require to ensure that Irish interests are protected and we can keep the lights on in Ireland, so any rescinding from that is unacceptable," she added.

Although she refused to give an exact date for the reunification referendum, because a good deal of preparatory work is still needed, McDonald said that within the next decade "we will have a reunified Ireland."