{"id":10029,"date":"2026-08-14T14:35:31","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T13:35:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/?p=10029"},"modified":"2026-08-14T14:35:31","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T13:35:31","slug":"how-northern-irelands-parties-navigated-europe-before-and-after-brexit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/how-northern-irelands-parties-navigated-europe-before-and-after-brexit\/","title":{"rendered":"How Northern Ireland\u2019s parties navigated Europe before and after Brexit"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Dr Conor J. Kelly, Bingham Early Career Fellow in Constitutional Studies at Balliol College, University of Oxford.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

A majority of voters in Northern Ireland\u00a0voted to remain in the EU<\/a>\u00a0in the 2016 referendum, with 56% voting Remain and 44% voting Leave. Yet political parties in Northern Ireland have, over several decades, displayed inconsistent or at times unusual positions on European integration. This can be seen in the respective stances of three of Northern Ireland\u2019s major political parties \u2013 Sinn F\u00e9in, the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP).<\/p>\n

Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s path to moderation on Europe<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sinn F\u00e9in initially combined its distinctive nationalist outlook with a more traditional left-wing critique and adopted an outright anti-EEC position when the debate over accession reached its height in the early 1970s. At the time, the party was widely viewed as the political wing of the Provisional Irish Republican Army, and its hostility to Europe was rooted in concerns around the dilution of sovereignty that the project appeared to entail.<\/p>\n

To continue reading, please click here.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

“How Northern Ireland\u2019s parties navigated Europe before and after Brexit”<\/em> by Dr Conor J. Kelly<\/em>, originally published on\u00a0<\/strong>LSE Blogs<\/strong><\/a>, licensed under<\/strong> CC BY 4.0<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0featured\u00a0image<\/a><\/em>\u00a0has been used courtesy of a\u00a0<\/em>Creative Commons license.\u00a0<\/em><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What explains the positions of political parties in Northern Ireland on the EU? Guest contributor Dr Conor J. Kelly writes that their unusual and inconsistent stances on Europe are best explained by how they have navigated a multi-level political landscape.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2417,"featured_media":9067,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe"],"mb":[],"acf":{"authors":{"simple_value_formatted":"","value_formatted":"","value":"","field":{"ID":9774,"key":"field_66d0cbf58f930","label":"Authors","name":"authors","aria-label":"","prefix":"acf","type":"relationship","value":null,"menu_order":1,"instructions":"","required":0,"id":"","class":"","conditional_logic":0,"parent":9772,"wrapper":{"width":"","class":"","id":""},"post_type":["authors"],"post_status":["publish"],"taxonomy":"","filters":["search"],"return_format":"id","min":0,"max":10,"allow_in_bindings":0,"elements":["featured_image"],"bidirectional":0,"bidirectional_target":[],"_name":"authors","_valid":1}},"description":{"simple_value_formatted":"","value_formatted":"","value":"","field":{"ID":9776,"key":"field_66d2183027749","label":"Description","name":"description","aria-label":"","prefix":"acf","type":"wysiwyg","value":null,"menu_order":3,"instructions":"","required":0,"id":"","class":"","conditional_logic":0,"parent":9772,"wrapper":{"width":"","class":"","id":""},"default_value":"","allow_in_bindings":0,"tabs":"all","toolbar":"basic","media_upload":0,"delay":1,"_name":"description","_valid":1}}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/76\/2024\/02\/Stormont.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"mfb_rest_fields":["title","jetpack_featured_media_url","jetpack_sharing_enabled","amp_enabled"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2417"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10029"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10029\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10031,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10029\/revisions\/10031"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}