The British government is virtually out of the game and neither parliament nor the British people have, as part of this agreement, the legal right to obstruct the achievement of Irish unity if it had the consent of the people of the North and The South… Our nation is and will remain a nation of 32 circles. Antrim and Down are and will remain a part of Ireland, just like any southern county. [20] While a border poll could be successful in the Republic, there is a good chance that it will be rejected in the North, says Dermot Ahern, a former Minister of Fianna Féil, who played a key role in the peace process. „Having a border survey within five years is one-dimensional,“ says Ahern. The Good Friday agreement acknowledged that a large part of Northern Ireland`s population wanted to create a united Ireland and that Northern Ireland`s foreign minister could call a border poll if it „likely“ that a majority of voters would „express the wish“ for Northern Ireland to be part of a unified Ireland. The overall result of these problems was to undermine trade unionists` confidence in the agreement exploited by the anti-DUP agreement, which eventually overtook the pro-agreement Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) in the 2003 general elections. UUP had already resigned from the executive in 2002 following the Stormontgate scandal, in which three men were indicted for intelligence gathering. These charges were eventually dropped in 2005 because persecution was not „in the public interest.“ Immediately afterwards, one of Sinn Féin`s members, Denis Donaldson, was unmasked as a British agent. What happens if the North and South vote in favour of unification, but the British and Irish governments do not agree or, as happened with Brexit, the British government does not get Westminster approval for a deal with the Irish government? I think the obligation to introduce legislation applies individually and individually to each government. If there is no agreement between governments, the Irish government would still be required to introduce legislation on the effect of the two unification votes, and the Oireachtas is virtually guaranteed to pass such legislation. It was at this time that the association would have taken place in accordance with Irish law, but not under British law. A border poll is the end of a referendum on the reunification of Ireland.

The first border poll was conducted in Northern Ireland in 1973, when voters were asked whether they wanted Northern Ireland to remain a member of the United Kingdom or to belong to the Republic of Ireland. 99% voted to stay in the UK. However, the survey was boycotted by most nationalist communities; The turnout was only 59%. What complicates matters further is that, at the end of the negotiations on a united Ireland, the implementation of the outcome of the negotiations would require a constitutional amendment in the Republic and, therefore, a new referendum. The British Army suspended its deployment to Northern Ireland from 1 August 2007, ending a 38-year presence in Northern Ireland. This reduced the size of British troops to 5,000, which was consistent with a normal peaceful society, as proposed by the peace agreement.1 The Independent Oversight Commission also confirmed the reductions by British troops in Northern Ireland.2 The principle of power-sharing was incorporated into the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. The proportional representation method was used to ensure that unionist (mainly Protestant) and nationalist (mainly Catholic) communities participated in government in relation to the seats they won in the new Northern Ireland Assembly. Members of the Assembly were elected by a single transferable vote.

If the major parties fail to reach an agreement on power-sharing, power would return to London, a situation neither side wanted. The Irish Convention, which took place between 1917 and 1918, sought to reach agreement on how to implement the post-war regime.