BREXIT CAMPAIGNER AND former UKIP leader Nigel Farage has taken aim at Sinn Féin, in particular Gerry Adams, over the party’s approach to the referendum.
“I remember the Nice Treaty, which Ireland rejected and I remember the Lisbon Treaty which Ireland rejected just over ten years ago,” Farage told TV3′s Agenda today.
“And I remember Gerry Adams of Sinn Féin saying in both of those referendums – we didn’t fight the British for 500 years to have Ireland governed by the EU.
“And I thought, I’m not a Gerry Adams supporter, but actually what he’s saying is completely and utterly logical. Irish nationalism actually made some sense.
“They wanted Ireland to be an independent self-governing democratic nation.
And Sinn Féin have completely sold out to the EU. Now whether it’s to do with money or what reasoning it is, I don’t know.
Sinn Féin campaigned to remain in the European Union, and the party called for a border poll back in June after results showed a majority in Northern Ireland had in fact voted to remain in the EU.
Last month, Adams told the annual Friends of Sinn Féin dinner in New York that the Brexit process posed a danger to the peace process and to constitutional arrangements fundamental to the Good Friday Agreement – one of the landmark deals of the process.
“The choice is simple,” he said. “Acquiesce to the demands of London and allow the North to be dragged out of the EU, at the whim of an English government, or pursue the credible path to argue at European level and with the British government for the North to be designated a special status within the EU.”
Adams said an ongoing process could end partition on the island of Ireland.
“Just as there are massive challenges, there is also the opportunity to plot a new course forward; a course that will end the partition of our island.
“The British government is now obliged to legislate for Irish unity if a majority wants that. The duty of the Irish government should be to achieve this. Unfortunately, this is not the case.
If it was, it would mean promoting all-Ireland co-operation and building relationships between our people. It would mean an end to partitionist thinking by policy makers and in the media also. It would mean enlisting international support for all of these objectives.
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