Northern Ireland has begun a “decade of opportunity” to vote on union with Ireland, the British territory’s first nationalist leader said in an interview broadcast Sunday.
Pro-Irish Unionist politician Michelle O’Neill made history on Saturday when she became Northern Ireland’s first minister, marking a return to power-sharing after the largest pro-British party ended a two-year boycott.
Speaking shortly after the UK region landmark, Sinn Féin’s Mr O’Neill said he expected a referendum on union with the Republic of Ireland to be held within the next 10 years.
Asked by Sky News if he expected a so-called border check to take place within that period, he said: “Yes, we believe this decade is an opportunity.”
“There are a lot of things that are going to change the old norms, the nature of the country, the fact that a nationalist republican was never supposed to be prime minister. All of these things speak to that change.”
Northern Ireland became independent from Ireland in 1921 with a Protestant majority after pro-British trade unionists threatened civil war while seeking autonomy from Britain.
Instead, three decades of sectarian conflict erupted within the British territory in the late 1960s.
A 1998 peace agreement largely ended the violence and provided for the possibility of an all-Ireland vote on unification, often referred to as a border vote.
Under the terms of the agreement, the British and Irish governments will be required to organize a vote if it becomes clear that “a majority of voters express a desire for Northern Ireland to secede from the United Kingdom.”
The mechanism for triggering such a referendum is unclear, but its triggering is seen as a consistent and reliable poll of public opinion on the issue.
Mr O’Neill is the first minister to be nominated since May 2022, when Sinn Féin emerged as the leading party in the 90-seat parliamentary election, amid a demographic shift towards the traditional Catholic minority.
But until this week, he was unable to hold the position due to the boycott of Northern Ireland’s parliament by the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP).
After two years of protracted negotiations, the DUP returned to power-sharing this week by reaching an agreement with London over the post-Brexit trade rules it had opposed.
DUP MP Emma Little-Pengery will become deputy first minister, a position with equal weight to Prime Minister O’Neill.
As part of the agreement with the DUP, the UK government published a document citing recent opinion polls and stating that there was “no realistic prospect that a border poll would lead to a united Ireland”.
“We believe that Northern Ireland’s future in the United Kingdom is secure for decades to come, so the conditions for a border check are objectively unlikely to be met,” it added.
O’Neill said he disagreed with that assessment.
“I absolutely intend to challenge what the British government said in that document, as long as my election as prime minister shows the changes that are happening on this island, and that’s a good thing.”