2021; Be Bold and Ambitious, Lets Call for May 2023 for Irish Unity Referendum

YES for Unity support calls for a 22nd / 23rd May 2023 Irish Unity Referendum.

Nothing focuses the mind like a deadline, it adds a sense of urgency, allows us to plan towards a goal and create the methodology for success.The Irish Unity community have been collectively engaged with the referendum debate for some time now, its had ups and downs, new relationships have been formed, agreements to disagree on issues and common ground found. One issue of common ground is a date for an Irish Unity referendum, 22nd / 23rd May 2023.

This referendum date was first proposed in November 2019 during a #Think32 hosted Irish Unity public talk and debate in Derry Citys Shantallow Community Centre, which included Ciaran Cunningham from YES for Unity with Sinn Féin and SDLP panelists. The fact that it is on the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement tells us that it’s long overdue, that it’s “put up or shut up” time for the Belfast Agreement.

The Northern State has failed in every way. Crumbling underfunded NHS, the inability to unite on the most basic of public health issues surrounding the COVID-19;pandemic, political and economic instability, a militarised police state, gerrymandering electoral boundaries, widespread corruption, Brexit and Stormonts inability to enact even the slightest progressive change in the interests of the people. Its finished, Stormont has never worked and will never work.

The Irish Unity community are faced with a major challenge as we enter 2021, the centenary year of the British partition of Ireland and the creation of the sectarian state. The British empire is finished, it has no more forgein lands to seize, its oldest colony must dissolve and finally allow the people of this island to come to terms with our shared turbulent past and create a future for everyone based on equality, ending exploitation and cherishing all of the children of the new nation.

2020 has not been wasted, the year was proof enough, not that more was needed, that Irish Unity is the only solution to our problems. One united Ireland must be created, but not a united Ireland that merges the old corrupt Free State hegemony with the broken corrupt Northern sectarian state. A united Ireland built with the maintenance of its people first and foremost, Republican communities have sacrificed too much at the altar of Freedom to accept anything less. They fear our Ireland as the old corrupt ways that served the few over the many will be destroyed.

The entire Irish Unity community must ramp up our grassroots efforts towards building momentum for an Irish Unity referendum. YES for Unity support the 22nd / 23rd May 2023 initiative and we ask all others to get behind the idea.

Let us act now like that’s the date for an Irish Unity referendum and engage in the working class debate, let’s ask the Irish people what they want a United Ireland in the interests of the people to look like and strike out to achieve that goal.

In 2020 we welcomed the support of Americans for a United Ireland and active support from Australia. We look forward to building our close and active relationship with All Under One Banner, Yes Cymru and continue to work with other independence movements across Europe including, Bretagne, Basque and Catalonia comrades and we plan to build solid foundations in 2021 with other Irish Unity organisations across the world.

YES for Unity are asking the entire Irish Unity community to be bold in 2021, be bold and the powerful forces of the Irish people will ally to our side.