"We are preparing for constitutional change, the reunification of Ireland, and we must do it in a peaceful, democratic, orderly way," said Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald on Tuesday.

Three weeks after its victory in the regional elections, the Republican Party must "win hearts and minds" in favor of the reunification of the island, she continued.

For reunification – requiring a referendum as required by the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement – ​​to happen, “requires preparations”, “a very broad discussion across the island, including all points of view said Mary Lou McDonald.

“Governments in London and Dublin need to realize this is a trend, with more and more people on the island believing change is imminent.

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Good Friday peace deal in jeopardy

Since the May 5 poll, which for the first time saw Sinn Féin become the leading party in the Northern Ireland Local Assembly, local institutions, where power is shared between Unionists – mainly Protestants, committed to maintaining of the province within the United Kingdom and republicans – are paralyzed.

Unionists in the DUP refuse to take part, demanding the removal of post-Brexit controls on goods arriving in the province from Britain.

In London, the government of Boris Johnson has threatened to legislate to override the Northern Irish protocol, at the risk of provoking a trade war with the European Union.

The various parties accuse each other of endangering the Good Friday peace agreement, which in 1998 ended three decades of conflict that left 3,500 dead.

The United States – which sent a special delegation to the old continent – ​​and the Europeans "have invested themselves immensely diplomatically and politically in the Irish peace process and no one is going to let Boris Johnson, in such a cavalier way, spoil this which they have designed with so much patience and care,” warned the Sinn Féin leader.

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