United Ireland should be new state that ‘can be better for all of us'- Varadkar
A united Ireland should not be 'annexation of six more counties' but a new state 'that can be better for all of us', a former taoiseach has said.
Leo Varadkar also said he hopes the current Irish government takes the decision to establish a forum to lead discussions on unity, and also appeared to dismiss concerns of potential loyalist violence in reaction to a united Ireland.
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Mr Varadkar, who stood down as taoiseach in April last year, said he believes he will see a united Ireland in his lifetime but warned it is not inevitable.
He said that he has had no regrets so far since leaving elected politics, and is enjoying both 'a lot of personal and intellectual freedom to say what I think'.
Former Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams listens to former taoiseach Leo Varadkar (Liam McBurney/PA)
He was speaking at an In Conversation event with Rev Karen Sethuraman at St Mary's University college in west Belfast, hosted by Feile an Phobail and Ireland's Future.
Former Sinn Féin president and West Belfast MP Gerry Adams was among those in the audience for the event.
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Mr Varadkar stressed that a united Ireland 'has to be a new Ireland that is better for everyone'.
'That includes a bill of rights, guarantees civil protections and liberties,' he said.
'Unification, in my view, is not the annexation of six more counties by the Republic of Ireland. It's a new state and one that can be better for all of us, an opportunity that only comes around every 100 years, which is to design your state and design your constitution.'
In terms of what the current Irish Taoiseach is doing, Mr Varadkar described the Shared Island Unit, which was set up when he was Taoiseach, as really positive.
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But he said he would like to see the Irish Government lead a forum ahead of unity.
'Just saying it as an aspiration isn't enough anymore, it should be an objective and an objective is something you act on,' he said.
'One of the ideas that I would put forward, which could help to move on this discussion, is the establishment of some sort of forum.'
He said there was the New Ireland Forum in the 1980s, and the Forum for Peace and Reconciliation in the 1990s.
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Former Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said that there is a 'strong case' to convene the parties interested in union (Liam McBurney/PA)
'I think there is a strong case now for us to convene the parties that are interested in talking about this, unions, business groups, civil society in a forum to have that discussion, but I don't see how that can happen if that isn't led by the Irish Government, and I hope at some point during the course of this five-year government, a decision will be taken to do that,' he said.
Meanwhile, asked how he felt potential violent opposition to a united Ireland could be handled, Mr Varadkar suggested he felt 'only a very small minority may turn to violence'.
'I know there are people south of the border who, when I talk to them about reunification, express to me concerns that there might be a very small minority within unionism who may turn to violence,' he said.
'I don't think we should dismiss that as a possibility. I don't think it will happen, to be honest.
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'In two referendums, both north and south, people would be very clearly giving their preference as to what should happen, it would be quite a different situation to when partition happened 100 years ago and it wasn't voted for.
'I don't think that would arise but I think it's a reasonable question.'
Meanwhile, deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly suggested Mr Varadkar was 'wrong in terms of the trajectory' towards a united Ireland, insisting the number of people voting for nationalist parties, around 40%, 'hasn't moved since 1998'.
Mr Varadkar said he was in politics long enough to not respond to someone else's comments without hearing them in full, but said the case he is making is not just based on the percentage of people who vote for nationalist parties, adding it is clear the percentage voting for unionist parties has fallen.
Earlier, Mr Varadkar visited nearby Colaiste Feirste where he heard about the growth in Irish medium education, and plans to build a new Irish Language Heritage and Interpretive Centre, An Spas Din.
School principal Micheal Mac Giolla Ghunna said: 'We have grown a vibrant Irish language community from our base in the Gaeltacht Quarter, leading to challenges for us in terms of accommodation and teacher provision.
'But far from limiting our ambitions, we are now using the Sportlann facility and initiatives like our GaelStair heritage project to offer our pupils and the wider community further opportunities.'
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The Independent
36 minutes ago
- The Independent
People desperately trying to call family in Iran are getting mysterious robotic responses
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It remains unclear who is behind the operation, though four of the experts believed it was likely to be the Iranian government while the fifth saw Israel as more likely. The messages are deeply eerie and disconcerting for Iranians in the diaspora struggling to contact their families as Israel's offensive targeting Iranian nuclear and military sites pounds Tehran and other cities. Iran has retaliated with hundreds of missiles and drones, and the government has imposed a widespread internet blackout it says is to protect the country. That has blocked average Iranians from getting information from the outside world, and their relatives from being able to reach them. 'I don't know why they're doing this,' said Ellie, whose mother is diabetic, low on insulin and trapped on the outskirts of Tehran. She wants her mother to evacuate the city but cannot communicate that to her. A request for comment sent to the Iranian mission to the U.N. was not immediately answered. 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The Guardian
40 minutes ago
- The Guardian
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As the accusations mount, the achievements of the Sánchez administration risk disappearing under the rapidly accumulating weight of mud. As well as delivering an enviably strong economy and calming the tensions in Catalonia after the failed 2017 push for independence, the government has, in conjunction with its successive, more leftwing partners, introduced menstrual leave, a minimum basic income scheme, a euthanasia law and updated abortion legislation. Perhaps most eye-catchingly of all, Sánchez has also bucked the continent-wide political trend by defending immigration and its benefits. 'Spain needs to choose between being an open and prosperous country or a closed-off, poor country,' he told parliament in October. 'It's as simple as that.' The coming weeks will determine the prime minister's future, but some believe the days of the Sánchez government are numbered. 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The Guardian
44 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Ancient trees are shipped to the UK, then burned – using billions in ‘green' subsidies. Stop this madness now
How green is this? We pay billions of pounds to cut down ancient forests in the US and Canada, ship the wood across the Atlantic in diesel tankers, then burn it in a Yorkshire-based power station. Welcome to the scandal of Drax, where Britain's biggest polluter gets to play climate hero. The reality is that billions in public subsidies has enabled Drax to generate electricity by burning 300m trees. Now the government is trying to force through an extension that would grant Drax an estimated £1.8bn in public subsidies on top of the £11bn it has already pocketed, keeping this circus going until at least 2031. This isn't green energy. The mathematics alone should horrify anyone who cares about value for money or the environment. Burning wood creates 18% more CO2 emissions than coal. Even if you replant every tree Drax destroys, it takes up to a century for new growth to reabsorb the carbon released. We're supposed to reach net zero by 2050, not 2125. Yet through circus-trick accounting, all of Drax's massive emissions magically disappear from Britain's climate ledger. They've simply been wished away – counted as 'zero', while the company becomes our largest single contributor to climate breakdown. Extraordinarily, this scandal unites opposition across the political spectrum. From the Greens to Reform, from the Morning Star to the Daily Telegraph, there's rare consensus that Drax represents everything wrong with our approach to climate policy. The Labour-dominated public accounts committee condemned Drax as a 'white elephant' that's been allowed to 'mark its own homework' while claiming 'billions upon billions' in subsidies. A Lords committee agreed, saying parliament needs to see key documents before approving any more funding. I don't agree with Ed Miliband on everything – we clearly have different views on nuclear power. I respect the energy secretary's commitment to tackling climate crisis, and it is worth noting that the further subsidies are half of what was previously on offer for Drax. But that's exactly why continuing to subsidise Drax at all is so disappointing. When Miliband announced his plans to 'ramp up' biomass burning back in 2009, he was genuinely trying to find alternatives to fossil fuels. But 16 years on, this policy has gone badly astray. What was meant to be a bridge to renewable energy is actually making emissions worse. If, on Monday, the House of Lords votes to extend this unabated wood burning for another four years, what is to stop these subsidies being extended again and again? And why should the government deal with a firm as untrustworthy as Drax? Perhaps most damning is what Drax refuses to reveal. After the BBC's devastating Panorama investigation into the company's destruction of Canadian primary forests, Drax asked auditor KPMG to investigate, hoping for a clean bill of health. However, the evidence was so damning that the reports are still being hidden from the public. If Drax has nothing to hide, why not publish these reports? A former top Treasury official turned whistleblower accused it of deliberately concealing unsustainable practices to secure subsidies. The case, now settled, raises questions of dishonesty that should disqualify any company from public funding. The extra billions Drax is seeking could help build enough wind and solar capacity to power millions of homes. It could create permanent jobs in genuine renewable industries, not temporary employment destroying irreplaceable ecosystems. Every pound spent subsidising tree burning is a pound not invested in technologies that could actually deliver net zero. While other countries race ahead with wind, solar and battery storage, we're burning money on the most primitive fuel known to humanity. There's a huge loophole in the government's pledge to stop Drax burning trees from primary forest. Their restrictions on Drax only apply to subsidised electricity supplied to the grid. Drax wants to power private data centres but there is no plan that prevents it from destroying ancient forests to power 21st-century AI searches. That means Drax could be cutting down even more primary forests than it does today. MPs have lost trust in the government's ability to hold Drax to account – the criticism from parliamentary committees has been brutal. The environmental movement didn't fight to establish renewable energy so politicians could facilitate the burning of ancient forests that took millennia to grow. Real climate action means making hard choices, not hiding behind accounting tricks that make our emissions disappear on paper while making them worse in reality. It is time for Labour MPs to speak up; the fight for net zero is hard enough. More subsidies for Drax's wood burning in the name of sustainability is just more fuel on that fire. Dale Vince is a green energy industrialist and campaigner
