On August 27th, British Prime Minister Andy Burnham was posed with the question of whether or not he will be motioning for an Irish unity referendum to which he replied with blunt rejection — claiming it to be something that will only serve as yet another point of division throughout the occupied Six Counties and, indeed, England.
Members, supporters and representatives of Sinn Fein would have you believe that the Prime Minister is simply going against the terms of the Good Friday Agreement. After all, who could have ever thought the nation responsible for heinous crimes globally, which made its fortune on the exploitation of different peoples, would propose an agreement they will happily disregard if convenient? Anyone with any sense or knowledge on how the British government operates, by now, knows well enough that this exactly the predicament they hoped to force the Irish people into — that the British government can postpone Irish unity for as little or as long as they like, and there's nothing our politicians or the ordinary Irish people can do about it.
When the policy of abstentionism was overruled and cancelled at the Ard Fheis of 1986, it was highlighted by various republicans in opposition to such cancellation that once you enter Leinster House, Stormont and Westminster, and agree to cooperate with the British government, giving up your only other means of defending your sovereignty, you will be playing by their rules and not those of your own, and you will have no means to do something on the contrary.
These highlights are now much more than just that, they were prophecies of what has evidently come to pass.