Bananas and Nuts

You may remember how in recent weeks we had a big United Ireland special with Leo Varadkar and Conor Murphy, and recently, John, we also spoke about the move towards a referendum on a United Ireland and how-

Or not

... well, yeah, and how it drives Taoiseach Micheál Martin bananas.

So, on Thursday evening, Andy Burnham, the new British Prime Minister, is in Belfast, and I think it's fair to say, Lisa, rather than driving anyone bananas, he drove Sinn Féin nuts-

[laughs]

...

when he said, "You're not having your referendum on a United Ireland." And I suspect what has happened here, this is the advantage to a Taoiseach of getting to have the first call with a new British Prime Minister, which has been, you know, what is it, five in the last decade.

And I suspect Micheál Martin very quickly marked Andy Burnham's card and said, "You're gonna come under pressure from Sinn Féin in relation to United Ireland referendum.

I don't want to do it, and I don't think you should want to do it, because you've more than enough on your plate in British politics without taking on a referendum in the North as well."

You know, I think that's probably completely correct.

I mean, so much for the usual British Prime Minister, uh, or say, we'll say from Dublin and London, using, you know, constructive ambiguity, uh, whi- which is always-

Or plumoss

... or plumoss.

But, you know, never kind of dance around a topic and never just go straight in.

But in comes Andy Burnham and just boots flying.

Now, I think you're right.

I think that is at work, that Micheál got to him, said, "Look, there's, you have a lot going on.

You don't need this." I think as well, though, it's, um, when you're, when you're, I was watching him on the, on the, uh, you know, s- speaking about this, uh, on the t- TV news last night.

You could almost [laughs] see the sort of trauma that still is there from, you know, when he was talking about the Brexit referendum in 2016 and the, the, uh, Scot- the Scotland's, uh, re- independence referendum a few years before that.

Just the absolute and utter chaos and the fallout and the division and the madness that emanated from that.

And if you look at the North and how events, we'll take, say, a s- an event like that stabbing in June and the way that it caused massive conflagration on the street.

Everybody was out.

There was, the far right had something to hook onto I think he's looking at, uh, I think Andy Burnham between just the political fallout and the potential for, um, all kinds of just actual trouble in the streets.

I think he looked at it and just said, "Referendums are never what they're about.

I'm definitely stepping away from this." And he did it in a manner which was breathtaking, to be absolutely honest with you, because we were not used to that kind of absolute directness.