Keir’s Four Nation Mandate boast doesn’t travel well without a mandate or a nation

Within hours of taking office the new Prime Minister Keir Starmer tweeted that he had spoken to the “First Minister and deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland. We are resetting our relationship, working together to unite our country”.

This was a welcome change of tone, and the quick succession of phone calls between Keir Starmer and Taoiseach Simon Harris, and those between new Secretary of State Hilary Benn and Tánaiste Mícheál Martin were evidence of a new intent. The Good Friday Agreement appears to be back.

Every subsequent statement mentioned the Good Friday Agreement and “legacy issues”. This is a step change from the turgid years when our peace Agreement was treated at best as an optional extra, and more regularly as an inconvenience deserving irregular lip service.

The next day Keir Starmer claimed a mandate from “Four Nations”. Stating that the Labour Party now has the majority of MPs from England, Scotland and Wales he reiterated that he would now claim that he has this mandate from all “Four Nations”, by which he included us.

This is a clear other intent – to claim our constitutional future. And that future appears to be government from London.

And this is where the two intents collide. It is not for any Prime Minister in London to claim the future of the people who live in our Six Counties. It is, under the terms of the re-promoted Good Friday Agreement, for ourselves alone. The Good Friday Agreement is a living document, which purposefully includes the terms on which we peacefully agree our shared future, and London’s colonial intent, whatever guise it comes in, has no part of that.

The Labour Party has no MPs in this region, which is not a nation. Those who do organise, campaign and live here are those that we alone elect. The party that received the biggest number of votes is a republican party, seeking to restore Irish independence.

When demands for Home Rule in Ireland were at their height in the late 19th Century London sought to quell these with a policy of “killing Home Rule with kindness”. It was an English solution which ignored the Gaelic revival and a confident Irish nationalism. It meant not insubstantial changes with land reform and greater franchise rights. English benevolence would not be enough however to quell the Irish right to and demand for self-determination.

Keir Starmer’s approach will be quickly clear when he meets with Simon Harris on 17th July. On the same day as he lays his legislative agenda, we will see if this new British administration will indeed remove the heinous Legacy Act, introduce fiscal fairness and contribute to Casement. These are their MINIMUM obligations and our MINIMUM rights under law and commitment, not benevolent acts we should be grateful for.

Only the Irish people can determine our constitutional future. No one can lay claim to us. We have the evident right to self-determination and there is a necessity for both governments to clear the path for our right to a vote on that question.

The conditions for a border poll have been met. The demographic changes are translating in poll after poll, Assembly, Local Council and now Westminster, to votes for those do not identify as pro-Union on the constitutional question. No man has the right to fix a boundary on the march of a nation.