Taoiseach says there is double standard over politicians discussing United Ireland
Vivienne Clarke
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has described the “double standards” within the UK government as unhelpful.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, Mr Varadkar pointed out that UK prime minister Rishi Sunak had described himself as “a proud unionist” and had appointed himself as 'Minister for the Union'.
Mr Varadkar said the Irish Government respected this, but there appeared to be a double standard when Irish politicians spoke about a united Ireland which was in the Constitution.
We were the adults in the room when we negotiated the Windsor Framework.
“I think we as a Government have been extremely helpful to the British government since the Brexit journey began. Under my leadership as Taoiseach, we've negotiated three agreements with the British government, the Backstop, the Protocol, when they couldn't honour that agreement. We were the adults in the room when we negotiated the Windsor Framework.”
Mr Varadkar said there had been a “reset” when Mr Sunak became UK prime minister, relations were better than “under previous iterations,” but the reset had not been to the extent that he had hoped for.
"What I said to the prime minister and I do not want to be saying it again in a few weeks time, is that we understand, and we're very glad that the Windsor Framework was agreed and is being implemented.
"But that's six, nine months ago now. And since then what's happened is there have been negotiations really only involving the UK and one of the parties in Northern Ireland, the DUP, the other four parties that represent nearly 70 per cent of opinion in Northern Ireland, haven't really been involved in that, nor have we.
"So we hope the UK government and the DUP government are successful in their negotiations. We're willing to help in that regard because we want the Executive to be up and running. We want it to be a success."
Good Friday Agreement
However, he cautioned that the UK government and DUP talks could not be “ongoing forever” and could not exclude others forever.
“We do need to sit down at some point and talk about what alternative arrangements can be put in place within the confines of the Good Friday Agreement.”
Mr Varadkar said he and Mr Sunak had talked about timelines. “I've kind of made it clear that I'm not going to put a hard deadline in this sense, it’s not my position to do so. But I think everyone understands, and certainly we talk to other parties in Northern Ireland that they do understand us. This can't go on forever, and we need to make plans. People in Northern Ireland voted in this election because they want full democracy.”
