Mary Lou McDonald: Westminster will never protect Irish interests
Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald has revealed that the party has already begun preparations for a general election in Northern Ireland and remains firm in their resolve not to take up any seats it wins in Westminster.
The Sinn Féin President told RTÉ radio’s News at One: “All of the evidence in the last number of days, weeks and months and decades demonstrates that Irish interests are not addressed, Irish interests have not been and will never be protected at Westminster and to go down that road is to miss the point entirely, that Irish interests are protected on this island, they're protected by a whole network of diplomacy and relationships that are Europe-wide and are trans-Atlantic.
“Irish history demonstrates that, and indeed all of the outplay of Brexit demonstrates that the British parliament, rightly, addresses itself to the interests and direction of Britain.
"That is its function, its function is not to protect Ireland and I think the sooner all of us collectively accept and appreciate that, the better.”
Ms McDonald warned that the Irish Government should not “think its way into a position where it is essentially making a choice between the Single Market and the Good Friday Agreement.
“I think for all of us at this stage, as the clock ticks down, we have a dual responsibility to protect obviously our economy and our all-island market economy and also to step up and defend the Good Friday Agreement.
“Let me acknowledge that these are very difficult circumstances, let me say very clearly that none of us have wished for Brexit, hard or soft, because in either eventuality it creates real, real problems for us, but I think the Government at this stage needs to share more information, we need some clarity from them as to the nature of their conversation with the European Commission.”
Ms McDonald went on to compliment the EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier for his “willingness to work, to be flexible, to be creative and to stand with Ireland in seeing off the damage that Brexit will bring to this island.”
The problems currently being faced on the island of Ireland have been driven by Brexit, she said.
Ms McDonald said: “But they're also a product of the fact that our island is partitioned. The fact that we have a border on the island is what poses this real crisis on the island in terms of our peace agreement, our trade, our economy and our jobs.
“When we seize the challenge of Brexit it's a mistake to imagine that Brexit is a one-off event that it will happen on 31st October and then you deal with it there and then. The fact is that on the 31st of October if Britain exits or crashes on that date, that's only the beginning of the story, so we need a plan for sure that is figured out in the short term, but you also need medium and long term planning.
"I don't believe that it's acceptable in any set of circumstances that checks are imposed on the trade of this island north to south, that has been the position of the Irish Government and it is on that basis that we need to pursue discussions with our European colleagues, but equally in our dealings with Boris Johnson who will be in Dublin on Monday.
“I will never accept, or anyone who fully subscribes to the Good Friday Agreement and its basis, will ever accept that the North is a third country. Britain has decided to Brexit, people in the North did not take that democratic decision, it now poses a huge, huge long term as well as short term problem for us."
“The only way that can be addressed is on an all-island basis with a united front, I think that requires political leaders to be united, it also requires that all of us in political leadership are fully informed, so the Government shouldn't play a game of cat and mouse with the information on these matters.
“Any information that's been made available to the Cabinet needs to now be made available to party leaderships across the Oireachtas and across the island. For us to get to a solution and mitigation we have to have all the facts before us, but we can't give way to the Tory Brexiteers, we can't allow them to succeed in breaking our island's economy and breaking the Good Friday Agreement. The two of these things are interwoven, you can't say that you're standing by the Good Friday Agreement, that you will defend it and at the same time that you will tolerate checks on the border.
“We have to at this juncture, not lose our nerve, I think we need to maintain focus, not to get tied up in the theatrics of the zoo that is Westminster at the moment, I think we need to go back to the first basic premise that all of us agreed right across Irish politics, that we could not countenance a hardening of the border on the island or damage to the Good Friday Agreement and as the prospect of a disorderly Brexit looms, now is not the time to soften that position collectively.
“Now is the time for us to advance that with the Europeans, also with our allies in the United States and critically in our dealings with the British political system.”
