Analysis. Almost a century of sometimes bloody combat has not allowed Irish Republicans to satisfy the dearest of their demands: the reunification of the island, shared since 1922 between a Republic – in the south – and the six counties of Northern Ireland attached to the United Kingdom. But this historic goal that neither the political and military struggle nor the terrorism of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) has made it possible to achieve, Brexit is accelerating. The resounding success that has just won, in the legislative elections in the Republic of Ireland, the Sinn Fein, a party whose raison d’être, since its foundation in 1905, is the independence of the whole of the island vis-à-vis the Great Britain is just one more sign.
Reunification was certainly not a topic debated in an election campaign dominated by housing and social protection issues. But by making Sinn Fein the first party in the country (24.5% of the vote), the Irish have voted for a party long considered by many to be unreasonable because it was the political arm of the IRA. The only Irish party active on both sides of the border, Sinn Fein is already co-managing the northern regional executive. In the south, his charismatic president Mary Lou McDonald is now in a position to participate in a government and push one of the first points of his program : reunification.
The paradox is that, before the British referendum in June 2016 on Brexit, relations between London and its former colony were in good shape. Northern Ireland, shaken by thirty years of violence from 1968, had found peace thanks to the Good Friday agreement (1998), the Republic of Ireland, former poor relative become symbol of economic success, had sealed in 2011 his reconciliation with the British by reserving a warm welcome to Queen Elizabeth whose Irish green tailor had caused a sensation. Long unimaginable event, the sovereign had the following year, shaking hands with Martin McGuinness, former commander of the IRA.
But in London, where the fate of the island arouses only indifference or condescension, no one has seen how the Brexit was going to be an Irish affair. In reality, the question of the border between the two Irish was at the center of the negotiations and gave rise to an astonishing demonstration of solidarity of the States of the EU with regard to the small Republic including the 4.8 million inhabitants. , members of the Union, are 93% pro-European.
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