Former Secretary of State says Sinn Fein are 'running the show' and Unionists need to get their act together

The former Labour MP said unionists need to get their arguments together for a future border poll.

Speaking to the BBC’s Nolan Show, Mr Woodward said: “I think the politics of pragmatism is fundamentally happening right now. The DUP woke up to the reality of what the consequence of holding out on discussions about a border down the Irish Sea. In the last Assembly elections they lost out to Sinn Fein. We are now looking at the first minister coming from a nationalist party, not a unionist party. Huge things have changed. I think they woke up, smelt the coffee and Jeffrey Donaldson rightly realised that train had left the station.

He claimed “Sinn Fein are effectively running the show in every sense now. They are really focused on the big prize. And the big prize is a poll for Irish Unity. Kier Starmer has said if he becomes Prime Minister he doesn’t see that it’s on the horizon – so they’re not getting an amber or green light from the likely next prime minister. But on the other hand, as Harold Macmillan once said – when the facts change your opinions change”.

When questioned by Stephen Nolan about what he meant when he said Sinn Fein are “running the show” – he pointed to a “really popular” SF first minister in Michelle O’Neill and SF as the largest party.

He said: “What you can see here is a way is being paved” to a border poll. He said this was shown by Sinn Fein’s pragmatism on issues around the Irish Sea border.

“There is a direction of travel here, and you’d have to be foolish not to recognise that it is coming your way. And unionists should be preparing their case for unity”, he said, adding that the UUP leader Doug Beattie’s response is responsible, and “unionists need to get their act together”.

Asked if he was secretary of state now, would he be considering a border poll now, he said: “It’s not about whether an individual should consider it… It’s whether or not the numbers are beginning to significantly change. And all I’m doing here… is looking at a recent poll”.

He said that put Sinn Fein on 34%, the SDLP 7% and pointed to the Alliance Party – whose voters “a bit more than three to five were pro unity. That starts to look like more people than not would like there at least to be a poll.

“Now the job of the Secretary of State is to make a judgement call. That judgement call is beginning to put this onto the horizon. Kier Starmer has said it is not on the horizon, and ultimately it will be the prime minister – should be be the prime minister – who will make the choice. But you can’t ignore the facts. The facts are moving in a direction in which I think, within the next ten years – if that momentum continues – it would be the responsible thing – just as it was just a few years ago to have such a poll in Scotland”.

Mr Woodward pointed to the stability of Stormont in the wake of the bombshell resignation of Sir Jeffrey Donaldson.

He said: “The first thing I would be considering is ensuring that the show stays on the road. And I think one of the most remarkable things about the weekend is how quickly the DUP moved to put Gavin Robinson in place. How little noise there was around that happening, yes some, but not really anything of any major significance – and that’s unlikely to change.

“If I was secretary of state, the thing I would be doing is ensuring that the institutions continue to run. And again – worth noting that we weren’t looking at the deputy first minister being the leader of the DUP. In other words, the institutions, whilst they felt the shocks of this earthquake, they weren’t at the centre of the earthquake”.