Historic win for nationalist in Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland elected more Irish nationalists to Britain’s parliament than pro-British unionists, a first since the partition of Ireland in 1921.

Nationalists said the result paved the way towards a vote on whether there should be a united Ireland, as Prime Minister Boris Johnson won a crushing victory across the union.

“We are heading towards a border poll, I can’t give you a definitive date, but we need to do the spade work now and prepare ourselves,” Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald said.

The largest nationalist party Sinn Fein narrowly won the final of the region’s 18 seats. That meant Sinn Fein kept its seven seats and the resurgent fellow pro-Irish SDLP won two, combining to pass the Democratic Unionist Party, which fell from 10 seats to eight.

The cross-community Alliance Party took the final seat, adding to the majority of anti-Brexit MPs after its share of the total vote rocketed by almost 10%.

Via Euronews/Reuters