Former PM Gordon Brown's comments on the break up of the UK have been rejected by an Ulster Unionist MLA
The conditions required for a vote on breaking up the United Kingdom are very far from being met, despite comments by a former UK Prime Minister that Northern Ireland’s exit from the Union is inevitable in the long term, a UUP MLA has said.
Steve Aiken was reacting to comments by Gordon Brown, in which he said there would be a political union on the island of Ireland – after a “long process” and if people agree.
The former Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar responded to the remarks by saying nothing could be taken for granted, even if demographic change makes a united Ireland more likely.
He also said the first stage in such a process would be to “build a stable majority” in Northern Ireland “before a referendum takes place”.
In an interview with the Guardian, former Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown was asked about continued pressure for Scottish independence, and said: “Scotland’s got to find a way of living in cooperation with other countries, and independence would not be the right way forward.
“We’re geographically, economically, socially, culturally linked to the rest of the United Kingdom, whether it’s Wales, England or parts of Ireland.”
Questioned about whether the geographical link of Northern Ireland with the Republic of Ireland meant uniting the two made sense, he replied: “Yes. Well, of course, in the long term, Ireland will be united.”
Such a process would be, he added, “a long process where people have got to come together and find a way of agreeing. Basically, that is the issue: whether people can actually agree”.
Last week, PM Andy Burnham ruled out calling a referendum on Northern Ireland’s place in the UK, describing a border poll as “off the table”.
Responding to Mr Brown’s remarks, the Ulster Unionist Party’s Steve Aiken told the News Letter: “The near Pavlovian response by the nationalist/republican commentariat to Prime Minister Burnham’s correct remarks has now shifted to the comments of the short serving ex-PM Gordon Brown.
“Brown, best remembered for selling off our gold reserves at the lowest price and raiding our pension schemes, was stating that in the long term, he believed there would be a unified island.
“What he also said, in the Guardian article, was that he qualified these remarks by the fact it would be a very long time in the future, and only with the agreement of the people of Northern Ireland. Bizarrely he didn’t think there should be an equivalence with Scotland - a surprising differential approach.
“Bearing in mind that Gordon Brown has never been particularly prescient, coupled with the available peer reviewed evidence that no agreement on any change to our constitutional position is ever likely, the response shown by the ‘32 county’ dreamers to his remarks is another example of salivating about the unobtainable.
“The provisions of the Belfast / Good Friday Agreement are clear and unambiguous. The Secretary of State will not call for a border poll unless there is very clear evidence that the result would be in the break up of this part of our United Kingdom.
“It is beyond doubt that those conditions are very far from ever being met; indeed in these uncertain geopolitical times, the dreamers calling for such a poll smacks not just of desperation but of a naivety in the likely impact on social cohesion of such a referendum.
“It will come as no surprise that Leo Varadkar is wading into this debate. Rather than working for the best outcomes for both the Irish Republic and this part of the United Kingdom, he is more intent on grabbing the headlines as another mediocre ex-Prime Minister, rather than addressing his own nation’s significant failings as a security freeloader in a threatened Europe”,