Brexit and the Political Future of Northern Ireland

Abstract

The article studies the political impact and consequences of Brexit for Northern Ireland. The dynamics of public opinion and voter preferences demonstrates that the question of the secession of Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom and of Irish unification has become one of the key issues for the province’s politics after the 2016 referendum. From 2017 to 2019, there was a noticeable increase in support for the idea of a united Ireland. At the same time, despite the electoral gains in 2017 for nationalist and republican parties (Sinn Féin and the SDLP), the main supporters of this idea, in 2019 they suffered losses in elections at all levels, and the primary beneficiaries were "neutral" parties, especially the Alliance Party. This shows that Northern Irish politics is gradually ceasing to be sectarian. The article concludes that there are a number of factors — the deep dissatisfaction among Northern Ireland voters with the position of the conservative Johnson government regarding Brexit, younger age of supporters of Irish unity than of unionists, demographic trends (the Roman Catholic population increases much faster than the Protestants), and, especially, growing fears of the deterioration of the socio-economic situation in the province as a result of Brexit — that make Irish unification more likely in the next five or ten years.