Irish foreign minister: A unity vote is coming — but not quite yet

Britain has voted to leave the European Union, but the now-official Brexit won't happen overnight. The EU has a formal, two-year exit process, which Irish Foreign Minister Charlie Flanagan said Saturday should not coincide with an Irish unity vote.

"I share the view that at some stage in the future that the unification would be in the best interests of the people but only when there is a majority consent of the people in Northern Ireland," Flanagan remarked, adding, "We now have a situation following the referendum, where the U.K. is leaving the European Union. Any further referendums in Northern Ireland would cause a greater level of division than we have now and is therefore in my view particularly unhelpful."

His comments come after Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland Martin McGuinness called for the unity vote on Friday, arguing that the British government "now has no democratic mandate to represent the views of the North in any future negotiations with the European Union" because 56 percent of Northern Irish voters backed remaining in the EU.

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