Tell us what you hoped to achieve from today's meeting.

Well, we have a long-standing relationship with both the Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru over many years, very close fraternal relationships and share a lot of common purpose together.

And clearly we're in different scenarios in different countries, but there is a desire for self-determination with them for independence.

And that desire is clearly part of our make-up in Ireland as well.

And we now have a situation where since the last election, elections in Britain where the SNP retained their leadership in the Scottish Parliament and applied for the first time ever now lead the Welsh Parliament and Michelle O'Neill for the first time in the last elections in the North became First Minister in the North.

You can see that sense of that profound political change is happening right across those three regions and that that has a very direct impact in terms of the future of Britain and all of the regions under its jurisdiction.

So I think today was an opportunity for our party president and vice president uh to go and formally meet with both john swinney and rune up here with and sign a formal memorandum understanding to bring the level of cooperation between our three parties to a new level which is about the constitutional future of all these areas but also i think recognizing that even in the course of of what is very significant political change across our islands that there is a need to maintain relationships and there are a lot of mutual issues of mutual interest and concern to us across these islands and with the people in England as well that we need to maintain in any new constitutional framework.

And so those three party sets of leaderships that met today, it's sort of an anyone but England grouping really, isn't it? In terms of countries currently within the UK.

What's your reaction to his comments? How significant were they?

Well, I think it does reflect that sentiment.

We've always had bipartisan support in the United States for Ireland, for the peace process in particular.

And I mean, the American intervention under the Clinton administration at that time was critical in terms of securing the Good Friday Agreement and ensuring that there was buy-in across the board for the Good Friday Agreement.

And that his, I suppose, remarks the other day, while probably going further than any other president has gone in relation to constitutional change, do reflect that support because there's a very strong support for the idea of Irish unity in Capitol Hill across the parties.

And I think his comments just really reflect that.

So I do think following on, I suppose, on former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's comments about the inevitability of a united Ireland, It does, I think, reinforce to our own Taoiseach the need to get down to serious preparation work.

And just as President Trump's comments sparked a backlash from unionists, this move is also seen as unpopular with unionists.

What does he think?

It's a much broader demand, uh, than Sinn Féin's.

This has been a growing conversation in Ireland for some number of years.

The Northern Ireland state, which was set up to have a permanent unionist majority, that has ended some time ago.

That has been repeated in electoral cycles.

So there's a, a general consensus within Ireland that the, the unity project is moving at pace.

Trump's, uh, comments, I think, reflect what has long been a bipartisan approach from politics in America, from both Republicans and Democrats, both in support of the Irish peace process and the Good Friday Agreement, but also in support of constitutional change in Ireland.

Or do you think, as some are saying, it's to do with the midterms coming up in the US and shoring up Irish votes on the East Coast, of which there are very many?

Yeah, Conor, do you think the other parties in the South are genuinely interested?

Yeah, I do believe that.

I mean, I agree with Leo entirely.

This isn't a Sinn Féin project and we've never said people have to fall behind what we're saying on this issue and we will lead.

This is much bigger for us.

This is a national project.

This is all of the parties and outside of the parties, this is something for the island and the people who live on the island as a whole.

I mean, there's the sort of how to protect minority rights, as in it could be a sizable minority, but also the element within it who do resort to, unfortunately, to hooliganism, vandalism, violence, and worse.