Sinn Fein, the Irish nationalist party that aspires to lift Northern Ireland from British rule to create a united Ireland, won the most seats in the Belfast legislature, official results showed on Saturday.
With almost all the votes counted, Sinn Fein secured 27 seats, while the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), the largest in the Northern Ireland Assembly for two decades, took 24. Only two remained seats to declare.
Pro-British Unionist parties, mainly supported by the region’s Protestant population, have been prominent in Northern Ireland for a century.
A new era’
Sinn Fein vice-president Michelle O’Neill said earlier on Saturday that Northern Ireland was entering a “new era” as her party was poised to win.
“This is a watershed moment for our politics and our people,” she said. “I will provide leadership that is inclusive, that celebrates diversity, that guarantees rights and equality for those who have been excluded, discriminated against or ignored in the past,” she added.
The largest group in the legislature has the right to provide the prime minister in Belfast. O’Neill is likely to take the job.
A prime minister advocating a united Ireland would represent a sea change in provincial policy.
As the former political wing of the paramilitary Irish Republican Army (IRA), Sinn Fein has pledged to hold a referendum on reunification with the Republic of Ireland to the south.
A referendum that could see Northern Ireland become part of the neighboring Republic of Ireland and leave the UK is ultimately at the discretion of the British government and is likely to be years away. The Good Friday peace agreement, however, stipulates that if it ever appears “likely” that a “majority of voters” will support reunification, the UK should allow such a vote.
O’Neill had played down the party’s calls for Irish unity during the election campaign. She said the economically left-leaning party was “not set” on a date for a sovereignty ballot, but was instead focused on helping people deal with a cost of living crisis.
But on Saturday O’Neil said a “healthy conversation is already underway” about Irish reunification. “Let’s have a healthy debate about what our future looks like,” she added.
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Northern Ireland’s shifting border
The Irish Free State
Britain’s response to Irish demands for independence was devolution within the UK, or self-government. Pro-British Unionists did not want to be ruled from Dublin, so two parliaments were created, for Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland. However, nationalists still pushed for full independence and in 1922 Southern Ireland was replaced by the Irish Free State as provided for in the Anglo-Irish Treaty (pictured)
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Northern Ireland’s shifting border
The Six Counties
Northern Ireland had been carved up in a way that allowed Protestant loyalists to retain control, but also to ensure that the region was large enough to be viable. It included four predominantly Protestant counties in the former province of Ulster, as well as the two nationalist Catholic counties. Three of Ulster’s counties – Donegal, Monaghan and Cavan – were placed on the southern Irish side of the border.
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Northern Ireland’s shifting border
No laughing matter?
Involving members of the British, Irish and Belfast devolved governments, a 1924-25 Boundary Commission considered whether the border should remain where it was. It stayed largely in the same place, often passing through communities on its 310 miles. Spike Milligan’s novel ‘Puckoon’, turned into a movie (above), depicts the problems of a fictional Irish village divided by the border.
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Northern Ireland’s shifting border
Road customs checks
The checkpoints of the new border initially regulated the movement of certain goods, the movement of people being free. However, the Anglo-Irish Trade War of the 1930s saw tariffs imposed on food and later on coal and steel. The dispute ended in 1936, but Ireland still pursued protectionist policies into the 1950s. Customs remained in place until the advent of the EU single market in 1993.
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Northern Ireland’s shifting border
bloody legacy
With fighting escalating in Northern Ireland in 1969, British troops were sent into the province, fueling nationalist resentment. The border was heavily guarded to stop the smuggling of weapons from the Republic. The South Armagh stretch was particularly notorious. The Irish Republican Army’s South Armagh Brigade is thought to have killed around 165 British soldiers and police from 1970 to 1997.
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Northern Ireland’s shifting border
South of the border
The border was also policed by the Republic of Ireland security forces, who stepped up their counter-terrorism efforts in the late 1970s. They worked with the British, but the working relationship was not easy. To communicate with their Irish counterparts, British troops at some point had to speak to the Northern Irish Police, who contacted the Irish Police, who then called the Irish Army.
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Northern Ireland’s shifting border
Watch towers and rifle sights
Despite the end of customs in 1993, the terrorist threat still hovered and the border remained militarized, with watchtowers and soldiers. After the 1998 Good Friday Agreement – which brought devolved government back to Northern Ireland and sought to address issues such as policing and paramilitarism – the IRA finally halted its campaign of violence as security in borders have disappeared.
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Northern Ireland’s shifting border
Barely noticeable
The border remains as invisible today as it has ever been, with free movement between the Republic and the North. The photo shows two police officers, one British, one Irish, watching a foreign stage of the Giro d’Italia cross the border in Armagh.
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Northern Ireland’s shifting border
Nothing to report?
There were fears that Brexit would necessitate a hard border, as Britain left both the customs union and the EU single market. The border issue was one of three conditions set by the EU for talks on future trade after separation. Activists, like those pictured above, had sought to remind the public what a hard border would look like.
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Northern Ireland’s shifting border
Border in the Irish Sea
Customs officers check cargo lorries as they disembark from a ferry at the Northern Irish port of Larne. The inspections effectively created a customs border in the Irish Sea, obviating the need for checks ashore. The arrangement caused supply problems for some companies. However, it has been touted as good for Northern Ireland, giving businesses free access to the UK and European markets.
Author: Richard Connor
Unionist party leader concedes
Before the end of the vote count, DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson acknowledged on Saturday that his Sinn Fein rivals were poised for election victory.
“Certainly it looks at the moment Sinn Fein will become the biggest party,” he told Sky News, while reiterating that the DUP would refuse to join a new government without a change to a trade deal. post-Brexit between the UK and EU.
This arrangement – effectively creating a barrier within the UK – makes many trade unionists uneasy.
What happens next?
The party in second place could choose the deputy first minister – a position that holds the same effective governmental power in Northern Ireland’s unique power-sharing arrangement.
Northern Ireland’s new lawmakers will meet next week to try to form an executive. If they fail to do so within six months, the administration will collapse.
It would mean a new election and continued uncertainty.
Voting in Northern Ireland came at the same time as regional elections in other parts of the UK, with Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative party losing control of key councils in London.
tj,rc/fb (AP, AFP, Reuters, dpa)
