Unionists’ Brexit politicking has ensured Northern Ireland has no future | Susan McKay

The DUP thought Brexit was a chance to get a hard border back, but now they cling to the vestiges of their old dominance

Unionism saw in Brexit an opportunity to wreck the Good Friday agreement and get a hard border back. Instead, it is any prospect of the survival of Northern Ireland that has been demolished. Sir Jeffrey Donaldson admitted in an interview at the weekend that if Sinn Féin took the first minister’s post at Stormont, it would be a problem for unionists.

The latest opinion poll showed Sinn Féin poised to be country’s largest party on 25%, with the DUP plummeting to 13%, now surpassed on the unionist side by the Ulster Unionist party (UUP) and Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV). Next year’s census will probably show that the Catholic community is now larger than the Protestant one. An election is due in the spring of 2022. This is the context in which we must view Donaldson’s threat to pull out of the executive, and his decision to stop co-operating with the Irish government in cross-border bodies. The protocol is a fig leaf, and one plucked from a tree the DUP and Boris Johnson planted.

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from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2VLWuQR