Sinn Féin’s leader attacked Britain’s “toxic Brexit” on Friday before heading to the US to build support for a referendum on Irish reunification and the break-up of the United Kingdom.
Mary Lou McDonald warned Britain’s next prime minister to bow to pressure from Washington to ditch plans to tear up the Northern Ireland Protocol before meeting US politicians including Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi.
“We are now beginning to write the next chapter in Ireland’s story – the reunification of Ireland,” Ms McDonald said before the visit to California,
“The role of the US in securing the Good Friday Agreement was critical and their voice will be just as important as we move towards referenda on Irish unity.”
Michelle O’Neill overturned more than a century of unionist majorities to make Sinn Fein the biggest party in Northern Ireland for the first time in May. Ms McDonald predicted border polls in Ireland and Northern Ireland within five to ten years.
A referendum in Northern Ireland will only be held if the Secretary of State judges it likely a majority would support reunification.
The DUP refused to enter power-sharing in Stormont after the elections until the Brexit treaty that created the Irish Sea border is removed or replaced.
The Government is pushing ahead with the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill, which hands ministers the power to unilaterally tear up parts of the treaty after the EU rejected its demands for a wholesale renegotiation of the deal.
“There is no excuse for the DUP not being back in government today,” Minister of State for Northern Ireland Conor Burns told the BBC, “We will sort the Protocol, the DUP should be back in government.”
Ms McDonald attacked the “full out attack on the Good Friday Agreement from a British Tory party in internal disarray” and its “toxic Brexit”.
“As they elect a new leader in the coming days we need to see a change of direction,” she warned Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak.
“Voices in Ireland and the US could not be more unified in making it clear to Britain that this needs to happen.”
Ms Pelosi warned in May that Britain could forget a trade deal with the US if it pressed ahead with plans to override the Protocol.
“This clear breach of international law is extremely damaging to mutual trust and respect between the EU and the UK,” Maros Sefcovic, the European Commission vice-president, said in a speech To the British-Irish Association in Oxford on Friday night.
“Further unilateral action may give the impression to many in the EU that the UK leadership is not that interested in cooperation with the EU,” the negotiator said before calling on the next prime minister to engage in talks.
“I stand ready to work constructively with any new UK interlocutor to find a common solution within the Protocol. The EU never leaves the table,” he added.
