This morning on the Today programme on Radio 4 the call by Sir Jeffery Donaldson was very clear. He did not refer to a referendum in the formal sense but his words are clearly calling for the views of his local residents to be expressed and a referendum is the only way to achieve that as has been disclosed by many politicians within the UK. Jeffery Donaldson has been the leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) in Northern Ireland since June 2021 so his views are clearly significant. As part of the discussion he stated very clearly

I’m a Unionist, why would I be under a moral obligation to implement an arrangement that harms my place within the United Kingdom and indeed harms the good friday agreement itself? Article 1 of the Good Friday agreement, the Belfast agreement makes absolutely clear there should be no change to the constitutional status of Northern Ireland without the consent of its people.

Of course a very clear element of what he has referred to is that the fact that the Northern Ireland residents voted to remain in the EU by 55.78% to 44.22% around about 64%. However his comment was in the context of what has been set out by the UK Government in an agreement with the EU and he is very unhappy with it. So his call for the consent of the Northern Ireland people clearly needs to be set out in a new referendum or some alternative proposal that so far he has not set out!