For more than a decade, the Union has been under intense pressure in Scotland as well as, more recently, in Northern Ireland. The apparent fallout from Brexit and perceived errors by the DUP have invigorated what had been a moribund campaign for Irish unity. Many Irish nationalists believe that the reunification of Ireland is inevitable, while many unionists fear that they might be right. But how much of that thinking is tied to immediate circumstances that the entry of Keir Starmer to Downing Street could reverse?
Speaker: Sam McBride is the Northern Ireland Editor of the Belfast Telegraph and the Sunday Independent. He also writes about Northern Ireland for The Economist and was previously Political Editor of the Belfast News Letter. His 2019 book Burned: The Inside Story of the Cash-for-Ash Scandal and Northern Ireland’s Secretive New Elite became a Sunday Times and Irish Times bestseller and was nominated for the Christopher Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize. He is a regular presence on radio and television, giving analysis of events that impact Northern Irish politics.
Discussant: Professor Michael Kenny, Director of the Bennett Institute for Public Policy, Cambridge.
