Sinn Féin MEP Kathleen Funchion told a British minister in London on Monday that the British and Irish governments must “establish an appropriate date” for a Border poll because “I believe that the conditions laid out in the Good Friday Agreement [Belfast Agreement] for a referendum on Irish reunification have been met”.

Funchion was mistaken.

The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has no grounds to believe nationalist victory in a poll is “likely”, as the agreement requires and as Northern Secretary Hilary Benn has made clear.

But at least she framed her demand in terms of the agreement’s conditions. At least she addressed her call to the British government to a member of that government. Only the venue was inappropriate.

Funchion was speaking at the EU-UK Parliamentary Partnership Assembly, a forum to discuss the UK’s post-Brexit trade deal. There are dedicated institutions for British and Irish parliamentarians to discuss the Belfast Agreement.

So the Sinn Féin MEP was a model of diplomacy compared to Labour leader Ivana Bacik. Addressing her party’s conference in Limerick last weekend, she said: “I am calling now on the Irish and British........

© The Irish Times