With respect, that’s rabble rousing, divisive nonsense and the exact sort of thing which would work to significantly undermine any hypothetical future Yes campaign.
Whatever about Harris, Bruton actually spoke very sensibly on the recent Claire Byrne debate – that the key thing in the near term is for the North to focus on a politics which increases mutual recognition, understanding and respect. Because that’s the sort of society which benefits everybody - whichever jurisdiction the North is in. Rather than a society obsessed with using flegs to bait “themmuns”.
And what definitely needs to happen is for a positive, pragmatic politics to emerge from within the Unionist tradition and gain traction – whether that is the Alliance, or a moderate Ulster Unionist party, a slightly less bigoted and less destructive, or at least smaller DUP, a combination of all those or something else. Something other than “never, never, never”. Unionism - or a majority of people from the Unionist tradition -needs to become detached from bigoted, far right social “values”.
But something other than “Tiocfaidh Ár Lá” also needs to emerge from Sinn Fein. “Up The Ra” needs to be banished.
It might interest you to note that the view espoused by Bruton on whether a border poll would be feasible in the near future – that it isn’t, and at least 10-15 years of softly, softly bridge building has to happen before it could be possible - is the same view espoused by Oisin McConville.
McAleese and especially O’Driscoll are the exact type of people who would be involved in fronting a Yes campign in the South, if and when it happens. Along with the likes of Neale Richmond and Heather Humphreys.
Any Yes campaign would be led by the very definition of Middle Ireland, most especially the type of people who are routinely denigrated here as “west Brits”. And it would need to be, because how a Southern Yes campaign was conducted would make a material difference to the atmosphere around a Northern campaign. And if Sinn Fein had any sense they’d largely stand aside during such a campaign in the south.