'Brexit' wouldn't ruin Northern Ireland economy - leadership favourite

By Ian Graham BELFAST (Reuters) - A British exit from the European Union would not wreck Northern Ireland's economy, the minister widely expected to be named the province's next leader said on Monday, urging London to be bolder in its renegotiation with Brussels. Britain's plans for a referendum on whether to stay a member of the EU has raised alarm in the Irish Republic over the political and economic implications and among Catholic Irish nationalists in Northern Ireland long opposed to British rule there. According to an Open University report, a British exit from the EU would deprive Northern Ireland, one of Britain's poorest regions, of 8.4 percent of economic output that relies on direct EU funding.