British ministers have rejected claims that Sinn Féin’s election victory in Northern Ireland heralds the break-up of the UK, in spite of the nationalist party’s push for a referendum on a united Ireland within five years.
Brandon Lewis, Britain’s Northern Ireland secretary, on Monday begins the painstaking process of trying to coax pro-UK unionists to join the region’s government, which now has a pro-Irish unity party claiming the role of first minister for the first time.
Lewis is threatening to unilaterally rip up post-Brexit trading arrangements for Northern Ireland that are hated by unionists, in an attempt to bring the Democratic Unionist party — which finished second in Thursday’s elections behind Sinn Féin — into the region’s power-sharing executive.