A united Ireland referendum should need the support of a super-majority of voters in Northern Ireland and the Republic, Britain’s Northern Ireland minister Steve Baker has said, citing his own experience during the UK’s Brexit campaign.
Mr Baker, one of the leading figures behind the leave campaign in the run up to the 2016 vote, said he regretted now it did not require the support of 60 per cent of those who voted in the often-bitter referendum.
He said he believed the referendum would not have been carried had that been the case and that the UK would not have left the European Union.
If the campaign to take the UK out of the EU had succeeded, however, a super-majority rule would have meant it would have been accepted by everyone, he added.
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Speaking in Co Kildare at the half-yearly meeting of the British Irish Parliamentary Assembly on Monday, Mr Baker said: “Would anyone here seriously want a 50 per cent plus one united Ireland result in Northern Ireland? I speak personally,” he told the meeting.
“I deliberately say it like that because some of you I know would (want a 50+1 result). But just reflect on the trouble we had from running a 50 per cent plus one referendum in the United Kingdom.”
Noting his own support for the UK’s exit from the EU, Mr Baker, who led the Conservatives Party’s pro-Brexit European Research Group, said they had not “properly prepared” for some of the consequences of Brexit.
Speaking at the meeting, Mr Baker faced repeated criticism from Irish members of the assembly who were unhappy about the British government’s legacy legislation.
He urged the Irish Government, Northern Ireland’s political parties and others to give the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery (ICRIR) a chance to show what the new body can do to bring closure for victims. Sir Declan Morgan is to be the chief commissioner of the ICRIR, while former PSNI officer Peter Sheridan will be commissioner for investigations.
Sinn Féin TD Rose Conway-Walsh asked if there is not “an onus” on the Irish Government to challenge the controversial legacy legislation before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
Noting the criticism, Mr Baker said there is no chance of the British government “starting afresh” on the legacy legislation, though it accepted that the legacy commission will face “an uphill path” to persuade people that it can deliver a sense of justice to families.
Fianna Fáil senator Niall Blaney said the families of those who lost loved ones during the Troubles are being “retraumatised” by the British legislation, and many of them now feel like “giving up”.
A Northern Ireland Office spokesperson said the 1998 agreement is clear that any change to the constitutional position of Northern Ireland would require the consent of a majority, and it will remain part of the UK ‘for as long as its people wish for it to be. ”We are absolutely clear that there is no basis to suggest that a majority of people in Northern Ireland wish to separate from the United Kingdom,” said the spokesperson.
