Sinn Féin has warned the British government not to block an Irish Border poll, as it joined the nationalist leaders of Scotland and Wales to sign a pact predicting “Westminster’s time is coming to an end”.
Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald and deputy leader Michelle O’Neill, the North’s First Minister, travelled to Cardiff on Monday to sign the co-operation agreement with Plaid Cymru’s Rhun ap Iorwerth and the Scottish National Party’s (SNP) John Swinney, the first ministers of Wales and Scotland.
The memorandum commits the leadership of the three parties to sharing ideas on economic development, the development of energy resources, and international co-operation on issues such as the European Union.
“Each of our nations has the right to determine its own future,” said the joint memorandum. “Momentum is behind our movements.”
The agreement also called on the UK government in Westminster to “prepare for, plan and facilitate” constitutional change.
The meeting in Cardiff came after US president Donald Trump waded into the Irish unity debate over the weekend. While on a visit to the Republic for the Irish Open golf tournament at his Doonbeg course in Co Clare, Trump said he would “love” to see a united Ireland.
At Monday’s press conference in Cardiff, McDonald said Trump’s intervention showed the US believed reunification was “inevitable”.
“So this isn’t new. And if there is anything surprising, it’s surprising that there is surprise that a New Yorker, that an American president, would say they see the logic, the good sense, of unity,” she said.
UK prime minister Andy Burnham has said a Border poll in the North is “off the table” for now, but McDonald said a unity referendum was a “right … [and] we will not tolerate any PM taking that right off the table”.
The prime minister did not respond publicly as he cancelled all public engagements on Monday following the death of his father, Roy Burnham.
However, Downing Street told reporters at a briefing in Westminster that Burnham “believes strongly in the union” and wanted to focus on the cost of living instead of “constitutional debates and referendums”.
Sinn Féin’s government partner in the North, the unionist DUP party, criticised O’Neill for attending the meeting in Cardiff and insisted she was not there in her capacity as First Minister.
Swinney and ap Iorwerth later held a second press conference in the afternoon without Sinn Féin, to mark the signing of a separate co-operation agreement between the Scottish and Welsh governments seeking further powers and funding from Westminster.
While ap Iorwerth’s Plaid government is not pursuing a Welsh independence referendum for now, the SNP is pressing Burnham’s UK government for one. Swinney told the Cardiff press conference that he believed Burnham would be “the last” UK prime minister.