On occasion I like to challenge Irish Republicans who argue that Northern Ireland has no right to exist and that a British administration in the 'Six Counties' is a denial of the 'Irish right to self-determination'. I'm currently embroiled in such a dispute over on the blog of Ógra Shinn Féin, Sinn Féin's youth wing.

West Tyrone MP Pat Doherty has made this same argument at a Sinn Féin conference in London with the question of Irish unification at its heart. He has claimed that the "denial of the Irish people's right to self determination" remains a core outstanding issue of the peace process and that "for Irish republicans, the cause still persists - the British government's claim of jurisdiction over part of our country".

Whilst this sort of language is clearly meant to appeal to old guard Irish Republicans disillusioned with the Shinners' involvement in the Peace Process and participation in UK government institutions, it also reveals that any acceptance of the people of Northern Ireland's right to decide their own constitutional status without interference - article 3.1 of the Good Friday Agreement declares that "a united Ireland shall be brought about only by peaceful means with the consent of a majority of the people, democratically expressed, in both jurisdictions in the island" - is regarded by Sinn Féin as mere political expediency than as any real commitment to democratic ideals. For even if the prospect of Northern Ireland's political allegiance being dictated by the political wishes of another nation state was somehow made palatable - and behind the rhetoric and the slogans Irish Republicans have not made a convincing argument that it should - such a move has been rendered impossible by the democratic approval given to the GFA via referendums carried out and passed in both Irish states.

This is my main gripe with the radical Irish Republican movement and in particular Sinn Féin's interpretation of it. There is nothing wrong with seeking to unite Northern Ireland with the Republic via conventional democratic means, even as someone opposed to nationalism as a political concept I find the ambition distinctly unsavoury. But by arguing that Northern Ireland has no right of self-determination and that the will of a majority in what is effectively an arbitrary geographic area should ride roughshod over a minority who have declared via the democratic process for the continued union of Northern Ireland with the rest of the United Kingdom - and have done so for the entirety of their almost 90-year existence as a distinct political unit - betrays their very real contempt for democracy. It's time the movement demonstrated that its supposed support of democracy adequately translates into the rousing rhetoric which it is so adept at creating.