SDLP Leader Colum Eastwood has welcomed confirmation from the British Brexit Secretary David Davis that Northern Ireland would retain EU membership as part of a united Ireland under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.
SDLP negotiators have been pressing the British Government to concede this argument over the course of the last number of weeks.
Mr Eastwood said: “In successive referenda, the people of Ireland have voted for a constitutional settlement in the North based on common membership of the European Union across this island.
“That was the basis of securing the consent and confidence of nationalism for the Good Friday Agreement.
“The current British Government’s Brexit juggernaut threatens to smash through the fragile complexities of the Irish political dispensation.
“Over the course of the last number of weeks, SDLP MPs and negotiators have pressed the British Government to concede that unlike any other part of these islands, we have an automatic route back into the European Union.
“The Principle of Consent and provisions for a Unity Referendum in the Good Friday Agreement allow people here to make the decision to join a sovereign united Ireland and, in doing so, rejoin the European Union.
“It is welcome that the Brexit Secretary has now conceded that argument.
“Brexit has shaken the tectonic plates of our constitutional landscape. People in Northern Ireland voted to remain in the EU.
“The people of Ireland voted for the Good Friday Agreement underpinned by Europe.
“If that context is to be ripped apart and our political foundations thrown into flux, then the time will be right for people here to begin to explore our constitutional future.”
