Written by Amanda Ferguson and Padraig Halpin
BELFAST/DUBLIN (Reuters) – Northern Ireland’s MPs are set to elect a first Irish nationalist prime minister on Saturday, putting a former member of the Irish Republican Army’s political wing in charge of the region’s push for an end to the war. It’s planned. British rule.
But Michelle O’Neill’s appointment to the role marks the most significant milestone in the transition to a new generation of more pragmatic Irish nationalists who are not directly involved in the region’s decades of bloody conflict. It is also a stone.
And her election was made possible through a compromise between her party, Sinn Féin, and its arch-rival, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), which this week threatened the region’s 1998 Good Friday peace agreement. It ended its boycott of the power-sharing government.
“This is a historic moment and one that is not lost on the wider public,” Mr O’Neill said on Tuesday, when the DUP’s decision to return to power made his election inevitable.
“But it depends on how you handle it… let’s get down to business. Let’s actually… actually serve public sector workers and wider society.”
stalemate
Sinn Féin, once shunned by political establishments on both sides of the Irish border, emerged as the largest party in Northern Ireland’s parliament for the first time in the 2022 election, giving O’Neill the right to nominate him as prime minister.
But her path was blocked after the DUP refused to join the government in protesting post-Brexit trade rules, saying they would create barriers with the rest of the UK and undermine Northern Ireland’s standing in the UK. Ta.
The DUP ended its boycott this week after reaching an agreement with the UK government to ease trade tensions.
Technically speaking, the forced power-sharing system gives the DUP deputy first minister the same powers as Prime Minister O’Neill. However, the title Prime Minister has always had symbolic weight.
“The ground is shifting in a very decisive way,” said Chris Donnelly, a political commentator from a predominantly Catholic area of west Belfast. “And for nationalists, that means the moment of Irish unity looks closer than ever.”
union of ireland
The impendingness of Mr O’Neill’s appointment, as well as the 2022 election, has sparked debate about Irish nationalism’s ultimate dream of ending British rule in Northern Ireland and uniting Ireland.
“In fact, historically, it is within reach,” Sinn Féin leader President Mary Lou MacDonald said on Tuesday.
Macdonald, whose party is expected to be the largest in the South in elections due next year, has repeatedly said a referendum could be held within a decade.
MacDonald was speaking at Stormont Parliament in Belfast. Stormont Parliament is the parliament for Northern Ireland, established in 1921 with the aim of creating a Protestant majority in the newly independent southern Catholic province of Ireland.
At that time, approximately two-thirds of the population was Protestant and one-third Catholic. For the first time, Catholics outnumber Protestants, according to 2021 Census data.
However, opinion polls have shown that demographics alone will not win a reunification referendum. Opinion polls consistently show a clear majority in favor of remaining part of the UK.
The 1998 peace deal that ended 30 years of sectarian violence left any referendum on unification at the discretion of the British government, with a majority of voters likely to want the country to form part of a united Ireland. If it believes this is the case, the UK government can hold a referendum.
Writing in Friday’s Irish Times, Diarmaid Ferriter, a history professor at University College Dublin, said Macdonald’s comments were “hugely exaggerated”.
While Sinn Féin touts the prospect of unity, it is following a similar strategy in the south, where the party’s work has been successful on everyday issues such as housing, and is turning economic concerns into its pitch to voters in the 2022 election. focused.
And every politician in Northern Ireland is under intense pressure to solve the bread-and-butter problem, as a two-year hiatus has put pressure on already strained public services.
Mr O’Neill did not mention a united Ireland in his video message after the executive’s return was confirmed.
“We need to get into real tackling,” she said.
(Additional reporting by Conor Humphries; Editing by Frances Kerry)