Irish border poll ‘off the table’, Andy Burnham says during Belfast visit

British prime minister Andy Burnham during a visit to the Oh Yeah centre in Belfast, as he makes his first visit to Northern Ireland since coming to office. Picture: Cathal McNaughton/PA Wire

An Irish border poll is “off the table”, British prime minister Andy Burnham has said.

During his visit to Belfast, Mr Burnham said he is “here to listen” but added that the “rifts” arising from referendums “take a long time to heal”, referring to Brexit and the Scottish independence referendum.

Under the terms of the 1998 Belfast/Good Friday Agreement, the secretary of state can decide to hold a border poll and has a duty to call one if it appears likely that a majority would vote for Irish unification.

The people of the Republic of Ireland must also vote in favour of the constitutional change.

Northern Ireland secretary Chris Bryant has previously said that an Irish border poll is “not top of my list of priorities”.

Burnham rules out border poll

Speaking to reporters in Belfast on Thursday, Mr Burnham reiterated that he is “here to listen”.

“I will take a collaborative approach but some issues will be off the table, and that is one issue that will be off the table,” he said.

He added: “I think we’ve got to focus on bringing people together as best we can, and I think we’ve lived through a decade where there’s been a referendum on Brexit, we had Scottish independence just before it.

“What we find is the rifts that come from those situations take a long time to heal, and it sets you right back and you can’t focus on what’s right in front of us here and now, the cost-of-living pressures that are hurting people in Northern Ireland, the need to get that budget set so that public services can function as they should.

“These are the things right in front of us and sometimes politicians go to things that they want to see, as opposed to getting the solutions that the public need.

“I think a decade since the Brexit referendum, I think we’ve had too much division, too much arguing, too much, backward looking.

“We need to fix the things right in front of us in the here and now.”