The British leader in Northern Ireland is enjoying a rare success

Britain's Prime Minister Rishi Sunak took an unusual victory lap on Monday, visiting Belfast to celebrate the restoration of Northern Ireland's power-sharing government. His ministers struck a deal last week that brought the North's disgruntled union members back into the region's assembly.

For Mr Sunak, embattled on so many other fronts, it was a rare unalloyed success – important not only because it ended two years of political deadlock in Northern Ireland, but also because, according to some analysts, it could support a united nation. A kingdom that seems to be in danger of falling apart since Brexit.

With the revival of home rule in Northern Ireland, diplomats and analysts say, the spotlight will shift from the tantalizing prospect of uniting the North with the Irish Republic and focus on mundane issues such as reducing hospital waiting times or giving of wage increases to the public sector. employees.

“There was a head of the steam department who dealt with the issue of Irish unity,” says Katy Hayward, professor of politics at Queen's University Belfast. “Nothing worked, everything was broken, so people thought about the alternative. If you let the settings work, it relieves the pressure a bit.”

None of this is to say that the dream of a united Ireland has faded. Sinn Fein, the Irish nationalist party, has the largest number of seats in the assembly, a status that allowed its leader, Michelle O'Neill, to be installed as prime minister in the government on Saturday, a moment fraught with symbolism. She said she could expect a referendum on the reunification of Ireland within ten years.

For the first time since the 1921 partition that kept the North under British rule, Catholics form a plurality of the area's population. In the South, opinion polls suggest Sinn Fein, which has vestigial ties to the Irish Republican Army, could enter government after next year's elections.

Yet Ms O'Neill made no mention of Irish unification in her formal remarks after becoming Prime Minister. That was no accident. Her aim, analysts say, is to reassure the public that Sinn Fein – in partnership with the Democratic Unionist Party, which favors remaining part of Britain – can govern effectively.

“It is not in their interest to keep beating the drum,” said Bobby McDonagh, a former Irish ambassador to Britain. “The focus in the coming years will be on sharing power and making government work.”

Mr McDonagh said the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) had a similar incentive. After nearly a year of negotiating with Sunak's government to improve the terms of a trade deal Britain struck with the European Union on behalf of Northern Ireland, the party's best argument for staying in the union is to let see that it can work constructively with the European Union. nationalists.

For Mr Sunak, a period of calm would ease fears that have lingered since Britain voted to leave the EU in 2016. Northern Ireland voted 56 to 44 percent against Brexit, and the resulting tensions – linked to the country's unusual trading status. As part of the United Kingdom, which shares an open border with Ireland, a member of the EU divided the unionists and played to the nationalists' advantage.

This, in addition to the changing demography in the North, fueled hopes that Irish unity would come about sooner than expected.

A similar dynamic took place in Scotland, where fierce opposition to Brexit caused a spike in favor of a break with the United Kingdom (the Scots voted against leaving in a 2014 referendum). But here too, events have turned in Sunak's favor: while support for independence remains stable at just under 50 percent, the party driving the movement, the Scottish National Party, has lost support since a financial scandal involving its former leaders were involved.

In the case of Northern Ireland, diplomats say Mr Sunak deserves credit for methodically renegotiating the settlement left behind by one of his predecessors, Boris Johnson, whose exit deal with Brussels saddled the North with a burdensome set of trade restrictions.

“What he has done is undo the damage that Boris Johnson has done,” said Jonathan Powell, Prime Minister Tony Blair's former chief of staff, who helped negotiate the Good Friday Agreement, which introduced power-sharing and ended decades of sectarianism. conflicts in Northern Ireland. .

Mr Powell also named Julian Smith, a former Northern Ireland secretary, who he said held back-channel conversations with union members, as well as John Bew, a foreign policy adviser to Mr Sunak and from Belfast, who was closely involved. in an attempt to turn the union members around.

The British government has framed its agreement with the DUP as a way to ensure that Irish unification remains a distant goal. In a document detailing the terms of the deal, it said that, based on recent opinion polls, the government sees “no realistic prospect of a border poll leading to a united Ireland.”

Under the Good Friday Agreement, Britain would be obliged to hold a referendum on whether Northern Ireland should leave the union if there is clear evidence that a majority in the north and south supports it. Polls show that people in the North would vote against leaving by a double-digit margin. In the republic, however, polls show that a large majority is in favor of unification.

“We believe that, following the restoration of devolved institutions, Northern Ireland's future in Great Britain will be secure for decades to come and as such it is unlikely that the conditions for a border poll will be objectively met,” it said. government. (Ms O'Neill's comment about the timing of a border poll came in response to that statement.)

Mr Sunak, who met in Belfast with Ms O'Neill and Emma Little-Pengelly, the DUP representative who serves as deputy First Minister, said the deal with the unionists would secure Northern Ireland's place in the union would state.

But Mr Sunak himself faces an election later this year, which analysts said could have uncertain implications for the stability of the new government in the North.

If Sinn Fein were to take power in the South, some analysts said, it could strengthen the resistance of some voters in the North to breaking away from the union. But it would also make the prospect of Irish unity more tangible.

“The Irish unity debate will have to become more real,” Professor Hayward said. “Everyone realizes that you don't want to repeat the Brexit experience. They will have to handle it more carefully.”