Northern results do not make a united Ireland inevitable

The boost for Alliance shows that voting remain is not the same thing as wanting reunification, argues Dr Katy Hayward.

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Minutes after the general election exit poll results were known on Thursday night, the term “United Ireland” was trending on Twitter in Northern Ireland. It is easy to see why. The electoral map in the North is now starkly different in style and substance to that of Britain.

For a start, the strongest message coming from the region’s voters in this election is a rejection of Brexit. And a common concern of every single one of its 18 MPs is wariness of the withdrawal agreement negotiated by Boris Johnson.

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Article originally appeared in The Irish Times.

The featured image has been used courtesy of a Creative Commons license. 

Posted by Prof Katy Hayward

Katy Hayward is a Professor in Sociology in the School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work at Queen's University Belfast. She has particular expertise on cross-border cooperation and management, focusing on the case study of Ireland/Northern Ireland and the impact of EU membership. For more information and links to some of her recent publications, please see her Queen's homepage: https://go.qub.ac.uk/hayward

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.