{"id":579734,"date":"2026-08-02T03:27:32","date_gmt":"2026-08-02T03:27:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/579734\/"},"modified":"2026-08-02T03:27:32","modified_gmt":"2026-08-02T03:27:32","slug":"new-northern-secretary-deliberately-avoids-answering-united-ireland-question-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/579734\/","title":{"rendered":"New Northern Secretary \u2018deliberately\u2019 avoids answering united Ireland question \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The UK<\/a>\u2019s new Secretary of State for Northern Ireland<\/a> \u201cdeliberately\u201d avoided answering when asked if he believed there would be a united Ireland, in his first visit to the North since his appointment.<\/p>\n

Responding to the question from The Irish Times at a press conference in Belfast<\/a> on Friday, Chris Bryant replied: \u201cI believe lots of things. I\u2019m sort of avoiding answering the question. I\u2019m deliberately avoiding answering the question.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked if this was a sustainable position to take, given the significance of issues around Northern Ireland\u2019s constitutional position, Bryant responded that he was \u201cnot starting a [Border] poll now, or this week, or this month, or, I would suggest, this year. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo, you\u2019re going to have to live with this answer for now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked if the UK government would publish the criteria specifying the threshold for calling a Border poll, he said \u201cthe criteria are laid down in the Good Friday Agreement\u201d and \u201cit was not top of my list of priorities\u201d.<\/p>\n

Bryant was appointed Northern Secretary by the new UK prime minister, Andy Burnham, earlier this month. The MP for the Welsh constituency of Rhondda and Ogmore replaced Hilary Benn. <\/p>\n

A former Anglican priest who quit over the church\u2019s stance on homosexuality, Bryant is also a published historian and a prominent Remainer with a reputation for being outspoken on key issues. <\/p>\n

Asked by Sky News 2024 if he agreed with Sinn F\u00e9in vice-president and Northern Ireland First Minister Michelle O\u2019Neill that a vote on Irish unity was \u201cinevitable\u201d, Bryant said he always avoided the word \u201cbecause you can never predict what\u2019s going to happen in the future \u2026 but yes, that may come at some point\u201d.<\/p>\n

At Friday\u2019s press conference, Bryant emphasised that \u201cthe things I want to get done at the moment\u201d included getting the Troubles Bill on legacy in Northern Ireland \u201csorted\u201d.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Who is Chris Bryant, the newly appointed Secretary of State for Northern Ireland?Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

He said there was a \u201ccomplex balancing act there, and just to remember, why we need to get that right, is because there are an awful lot of families who simply don\u2019t know what happened, and that\u2019s just morally offensive, let alone socially divisive, and a kind of, a form of cancer in society.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, as a historian, that\u2019s just a really important part of getting things right.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another priority, the Northern Secretary said, was getting Northern Ireland\u2019s budget \u201csorted\u201d. He is due hold meetings with the North\u2019s political parties later on Friday, but said he was \u201cnot expecting us to make decisions today\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said \u201cquite a few politicians have already raised with me, are you coming with a chequebook, and actually I\u2019m coming with a bit of a checklist, of things that I want to get sorted and done. <\/p>\n

\u201cOne of those is, of course, we\u2019ve got to get to a situation where we can have a proper budget, but we also need to make sure that public services in Northern Ireland really are delivering for people.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The UK\u2019s new Secretary of State for Northern Ireland \u201cdeliberately\u201d avoided answering when asked if he believed there…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":561433,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85530,4501,61,60,43,2443,1577],"class_list":["post-579734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-andy-burnham","tag-belfast","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-northern-ireland","tag-uk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=579734"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579734\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/561433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=579734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=579734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=579734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}