The EU has gifted the Republican cause a blueprint for a united Ireland

Theresa May’s awkward dinner date with Jean-Claude Juncker stole the headlines, but there was another Brexit development that passed with much-less fuss: the European Union’s plan for Ireland to reunite after Brexit, which it inserted quietly into its negotiating guidelines. Few in Britain paid much attention to it. Across the Irish Sea, it was a different story. Among Catholic communities, there is growing hope that Brexit could be the issue which finally sees partition end on the island. Yet within Protestant communities, there is a growing fear that the EU is using Brexit as a tool to sneak through Irish reunification. The British government appears to be doing precious little to stop it.

The issue of Irish reunification was included in Brexit negotiating guidelines this weekend at the behest of Ireland’s Prime Minister. Enda Kenny said that he didn’t see Irish reunification as imminent but demanded that it be treated as a serious prospect, and the legal and political groundwork start in earnest.