UK premier says united Ireland poll ‘off the table’

British Prime Minister Andy Burnham on Thursday ruled out calling a referendum on Irish unification, describing it as “off the table.”

Votes on Brexit and Scottish independence showed the “risks that come from those situations take a long time to heal,” Burnham told reporters in Belfast during his first official visit to Northern Ireland.

“Well, obviously I'm here as I said earlier to listen and I will take a collaborative approach, but some issues will be off the table, and that is one issue that will be off the table,” he said when asked about calling a referendum on whether Northern Ireland should remain part of the UK or join the Republic of Ireland.

Instead, Burnham said the focus should be on public services and tackling cost-of-living pressures.

“We need to fix the things right in front of us in the here and now,” he told the BBC.

He added: “A decade since the Brexit referendum, I think we've had too much division, too much arguing, too much backward-looking.”

Good Friday Agreement 'must be honoured'

Michelle O'Neill, the first minister of Northern Ireland, hit back at Burnham's remarks on the referendum, saying the future of Ireland is for the people of the island to decide, and for the people of the island alone.

“It is not the right of any British Prime Minister to deny our people’s right to self-determination,” she wrote on US social media company X.

O'Neill said she met with Burnham and “directly challenged his anti-democratic comments” on a referendum on Irish unity, which are “completely at odds with the Good Friday Agreement.”

She said the right to a referendum on Irish unity was guaranteed by the Good Friday Agreement, adding that it “must be honoured.”

“I have full belief and confidence in the ability of all the people of our island to take full control of our own future and to build a new and united Ireland,” she said.

The Good Friday Agreement, also known as the Belfast Agreement, was a landmark peace deal signed in 1998 to end decades of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland known as the Troubles.