Border poll row: Attempts to 'move Belfast Agreement goalposts' slammed by DUP's Gavin Robinson
DUP leader Gavin Robinson has slammed attempts to “move the goalposts” of the Belfast Agreement, after the Irish premier’s comments on a border poll.
Taoiseach Micheal Martin has called for a “discussion” on how a referendum on the province’s constitutional status could be triggered, telling a BBC Radio Ulster podcast it’s “not satisfactory” for the decision to call a poll to be a “judgement call” for the Northern Ireland secretary.
This morning Mr Robinson insisted the province isn’t going anywhere, blaming recent attempts to “talk up” a referendum on “pressure within the [Republic’s] political system” while insisting support for Northern Ireland remaining part of the UK is as strong as it was three decades ago.
He told the BBC’s Good Morning Ulster: “You could hear [Mr Martin] was almost frustrated that there are those within the southern political system trying to drag him onto their territory.”
Reinforcing that the 1998 Belfast Agreement means the constitutional status will not shift unless the people of Northern Ireland want it to and that a decision on the border poll is in the hands of the Secretary of State, Mr Robinson said: “You either believe in the Belfast Agreement or you don’t; you either support the provisions within it or you don’t.
“This idea of constantly trying to move the goalposts, or say that it’s a sacrosanct document until there are some elements you don’t like and you need to change, that cannot be done over our heads. And nor is it mature or sensible for this continual reference to change when there is no clamour for it.”