In September 2024, former Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, TD, appealed to Southern political parties in September that “Irish unity should be an objective, not just an aspiration”. The reunification of Ireland is a hoary old piety that all Southern parties have felt obliged to bend their knee towards in elections of yore. So have Southern parties moved beyond vague aspirational rhetoric when it comes to reunification, and put more flesh on the bones of Varadkar’s desired objective? Varadkar’s appeal is somewhat nebulous, as the Concise Oxford English Thesaurus has ‘aspiration’ as a synonym of ‘objective’. Perhaps a better metric for critically examining the manifestos of these parties is that requested by the SDLP MP, and former leader, Colum Eastwood in early November. He asked Southern parties – when writing their Dáil 2024 election manifestos – to “consider including a clear pledge in your party’s manifesto supporting the unification of our island as an objective of government alongside deliverable commitments to advancing this important project”.

For the purposes of this article, in the context of election manifestos, I will regard objectives/goals/deliverables as interchangeable, and I will distinguish between aspirations and deliverables as follows: an aspiration is what a party would like to achieve, and a deliverable is what that party is planning to do in order to meet this aspiration.

Comparing the 2020 and 2024 manifestos as regards reunification

The six major Southern parties – FF, FG, SF, SD, Labour, and Independent Ireland (II) – won 87% of the Dáil seats in November’s election. Of these parties, only II did not have an aspiration to reunification in its manifesto (and II did not exist in 2020). Thegraph shows that there was almost three times as much written in the major party manifestos about reunification, compared to 2020, with the Labour Party manifesto accounting for the plurality. (Other NI-related text in the manifestos was not included in the word analysis. Such text related, for example, to Brexit, reaffirming support for the BGFA and the O’Neill–Pengelly Executive, and retellings of Ireland’s past.)

Aspirations and deliverables in the 2024 manifestos

Fine words butter no parsnips. Are there Eastwoodian deliverable commitments squirrelled away within these 1,600 manifesto words devoted to reunification? The table, below, shows that the Labour Party had more deliverable commitments in its manifesto than other parties had. Moreover, deliverables it shared with Sinn Féin (and the Social Democrats) suggest a deeper sophistication of thought than was indicated by those other parties. Only Labour proposed where the money for progressing reunification and its aftermath would come from.

Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael both shared a ‘make me unified but not yet’ approach, showing a disinterest in progressing reunification: neither party had any deliverable commitments regarding reunification. Fianna Fáil’s manifesto declared that the ‘fundamental goal’ of ‘unity within a shared state’ “can only be achieved … through reconciliation”. This suggests that FF sees reconciliation as having to precede a border poll, though it’s anyone’s guess how a desire for reunification can be reconciled to a desire to remain in the United Kingdom. (Fianna Fáil will never be reconciled to Northern Ireland remaining in the UK in perpetuo.) Fine Gael’s entire manifesto text on reunification is: “Fine Gael is committed to unification as our objective.”

There is no evidence from these manifestos that the new Dublin government will be proactive in progressing a plan for reunification (assuming a FF–FG coalition supported by independents, at an early January time of writing).

One can see a coherent approach to progressing reunification taking shape: governmental focus on reunification through a new department and ministry; parliamentary focus through a joint Oireachtas committee, enabling input from Northern politicians; input of economic and political expertise from academics; Green Paper, then Citizens’ Assembly forum-type, then White Paper; close liaison with the British government regarding the holding of a border poll and its aftermath; and diplomatic tic-tacking to ensure global support for a reunification outcome. But such a coherent approach will only happen if the FF–FG coalition steals the clothes of the opposition centre-left parties to cover their own threadbare garments.

In January 2024, Claire Hanna suggested in Fortnight that a New Ireland Forum-type body would be better than a Citizens’ Assembly to encompass the full complexity of required constitutional change1. The Labour Party has moved towards that position. Interestingly, Sinn Féin appears slightly more open to a participative forum different to the Southern Citizens’ Assembly model.

Sinn Féin: a partitionist-looking manifesto more lukewarm on reunification

Many will be surprised that Sinn Féin had less to say about reunification than Labour and the Social Democrats. However, Sinn Féin has been trying to re-brand itself for Southern voters as a party that is overwhelmingly focused on Southern-only issues. In its 2020 manifesto, Sinn Féin’s first major policy section was “Irish Unity”, on page 11. In 2024, “A United Ireland: ‘A Plan for Reunification’” was only the fourth most important policy section, after housing, health, and cost of living; and that policy was relegated to page 35. In September 2024, Sinn Féin activists blitzed much of the South with a leaflet campaign drawing attention to their housing policy. The leaflet prioritised housing over reunification. This must have been somewhat disconcerting news to Northern Sinn Féin voters.

It may be the case that Sinn Féin had shelved reunification as a priority in an attempt to convince unity-indifferent Southern voters that they were focused on Southern-only issues. If so, that strategy failed. One in five 2020 voters deserted Sinn Féin in 2024.

The Sinn Féin 2024 Dáil election manifesto is a fascinating document. Despite its first-ever First Minister (arguably Sinn Féin’s greatest political achievement since 1923), there is no picture of Michelle O’Neill. Nor are there photographs of its Executive ministers or its MLAs and MPs. Is Sinn Féin afraid that Northern politicians will lose them votes in the South? If that is true, it will be extremely difficult for that party to sell its vision for reunification to its Southern voters. And, surely a proper map of our island would not be too much to ask for from an all-island party, rather than the inaccurate freehand sketch on page 39?

Conclusion: reunification will be driven by Northern political change

Reunification was conspicuous by its absence in the Southern media during the election campaign, particularly in the two leaders’ debates on RTÉ1. As long as NI opinion polls continue to show a clear lead for remaining within the United Kingdom, it is unlikely that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael will be encouraging Hilary Benn to call a border poll. Given the distrust of Sinn Féin by Alliance voters, and the relatively small size of the SDLP’s vote, a significant increase in Northern voters wanting reunification is only likely if (a) the nationalist bloc reaches 50% (implying significant Alliance decline); (b) non-aligned voters become more trusting of Sinn Féin (implying that Sinn Féin had definitively distanced themselves from the IRA’s campaign of violence); (c) an SDLP alliance with the South’s Labour Party and the Social Democrats – on the back of its New Irish Commission (which will likely have significant overlap with Labour’s 2024 manifesto) – proves attractive both to working-class nationalists and unity-curious Alliance and NI Green voters. Movement towards a border poll, then, rests with Northern non-unionist voters and parties, not with Southern politics.