SDLP Foyle MP Mark Durkan.
SDLP FOYLE MP Mark Durkan says a referendum on removing the Irish border would not be a good idea at this time.
He says that it would “compound and multiply” the uncertainty surrounding the UK’s EU withdrawal.
But he adds: “People in Northern Ireland, who made a sound judgement, have a right to say: ‘We shouldn’t just be led into whatever happens next by people who don’t have a clue and don’t have a mandate.
“We must not compound the uncertainties and complications which a UK exit process would bring.
“Rather than parties getting into kneejerk stances, reciting certitudes which do not actually address the economic uncertainties, we need to collectively appraise the issues and interests which most need to be managed and protected as an unknown process unfolds.
“It is clear that the UK government and political process, even if under a leaver premier, has no satnav for a safe and sensible way to a reliable destination.
“Rather than just tailgating wherever postures, impulses and prejudices of British politics take them to, we in Ireland need to map the challenges, purposes and priorities that could most affect us North and South.
“We need to look soberly at all of the issues which will now be real and no longer dismissible as campaign rhetoric.
“We will also have to develop optimum coherence and consensus on how to minimise the adverse economic fallout, and how to safeguard and renew the prospectus for cooperation, policy partnership and growth across the island which was compellingly endorsed by the Irish people in ratios that far outweigh the verdict in this week’s misconceived UK referendum.”
