While the majority of unionists voted to exit the EU, McDonald voted to stay in. On the overall UK Brexit vote, Reed thinks Leavers believed “the propaganda but they never researched the subject”. “I would have to say that a lot of unionists voted for Brexit without looking at the figures. That, he said, is because the existence of Northern Ireland means the break can’t be as sharp as the hardline British Brexiteers would like it to be. Wilson hoped that nationalists would not seek to exploit Brexit for constitutional reasons because the “last thing a united Ireland would want is bringing in a non-reconciled Northern Ireland”.

Source: The Irish Times March 29, 2018 00:00 UTC