Is Irish Reunification Inevitable?

AlArabiya English

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00:00Well, Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou Macdonald talked to the British Airwaves this week

00:05to call for a reunification vote within the next five years.

00:10Part of her argument was that Northern Ireland isn't economically viable as a territory.

00:17But is that a good enough reason to rejoin the South?

00:21Does a stronger GDP wipe out the decades of struggle?

00:26Jamie, what do you think? Is reunification inevitable?

00:30No, absolutely not.

00:32And I mean, if you look from 1998 onwards, then the Belfast Agreement,

00:36I'm an opponent of the Belfast Agreement, but let's just take that as a point in time to now.

00:41Sinn Féin and the nationalist vote hasn't grown at all.

00:46The nationalist vote for United Ireland hasn't got any bigger.

00:49In fact, that's slightly decreased.

00:51All that has happened is Sinn Féin have consolidated themselves as the largest nationalist party.

00:58Unionism has split into essentially three different parties, the DUP, the Ulster Unionist Party and the TUV.

01:06But when you put the two blocks together, unionism is still by far and away the strongest.

01:12So therefore, look, there's no momentum towards a united Ireland.

01:16And this is being contrived and created by Sinn Féin and Irish nationalists to cover for the fact that they're making no progress at all.

01:23Why would you not want to be part of the most successful union the world has ever seen?

01:29All the economic benefits that come from that, the economic benefits of the UK, internal market.

01:34And if Northern Ireland is such an economic difficulty, why would the public of Ireland, a different sovereign state, want to claim it and have it?

01:44Because they would be inheriting what, on their case, is economic difficulty.

01:50So it doesn't even make any sense on Sinn Féin's own argument.

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