The Irish Question
The Briefing Room
BBC
4.8 • 731 Ratings
🗓️ 28 January 2021
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This year marks 100 years since the creation of Northern Ireland, in May 1921. But in the light of Brexit, which has left Northern Ireland inside the EU’s single market and customs union, creating, in effect, a border in the Irish Sea, conversations about the possibility of Irish reunification are getting louder. One opinion poll suggested there is now a slender majority in Northern Ireland in favour of holding what’s known as a “border poll”, a referendum on the reunification of Ireland, within five years. So has Brexit made reunification any more likely?
With Margaret O’Callaghan of Queen’s University, Belfast; Alan Renwick of University College London; Sam McBride of The News Letter; and Etain Tannam of Trinity College, Dublin.
Presenter: David Aaronovitch Editor: Jasper Corbett Producers: Tim Mansel, Sally Abrahams, Kirsteen Knight
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, radio, podcasts. |
| 0:06.7 | Welcome to the briefing room with me, David Aronovich. |
| 0:09.4 | We have a room, 28 minutes, the top experts, and a big issue to try and understand. |
| 0:15.6 | This week, Northern Ireland, is it, as a former Chancellor suggested, heading for the UK exit anytime soon? |
| 0:23.6 | 2021 marks 100 years since the creation of Northern Ireland. |
| 0:35.6 | The year has also begun with a recent Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, |
| 0:40.3 | predicting that Brexit has now put the north on a trajectory out of the United Kingdom. |
| 0:45.3 | There is a mechanism that would allow this a border poll, |
| 0:49.3 | and one recent opinion poll suggests a small majority now in favour of holding one. So this week, I want to know just how Northern Ireland could exit the Union |
| 0:58.0 | and whether it's at all likely. |
| 1:00.6 | Step into the briefing room and together we'll find out. |
| 1:09.7 | First, we need a bit of history, provided by Margaret O'Callaghan of Queen's University, Belfast. |
| 1:17.3 | Ireland is partitioned by the Government of Ireland Act 1920. |
| 1:22.8 | You can see it as a British attempt to look after what they would call their own people in Ireland, |
| 1:30.9 | the Unionists of Ulster. |
| 1:32.8 | numerically, its concentration is in Ulster. |
| 1:36.1 | So how are the borders of Northern Ireland determined? |
| 1:40.0 | Really by what the leaders of Ulster Unionism tell the Tory cabinet they most desire. |
| 1:48.0 | They could have had a nine-county Ulster, but that would have been 50-15 nationalist and unionist. |
| 1:53.9 | They could have had a six-county Ulster, which is what they, in fact, finally opted for. |
| 1:58.7 | The alternative was that they'd go for a four-county Ulster |
| 2:02.3 | where they'd have a clear numerical majority, but a smaller territory. |
... |
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