Newsman Webb can see both sides of backstop debate as he hosts Today show from Belfast

BBC presenter Justin Webb has said he can see both sides in Northern Ireland’s political debate over Theresa May’s Brexit Withdrawal Agreement.

But speaking ahead of the BBC Radio 4 Today programme’s visit to Ulster University tomorrow, he said it was harder to see which argument would eventually win out.

“I can see where everyone is coming from, I suppose that’s the thing,” he said.

“You can see where the DUP is coming from, you can see where the other sides are coming from.

“But what you can’t see at the moment is where the balance of power truly is and who wins.”

The DUP and other parties here have been at loggerheads over the Prime Minister’s Brexit deal.

Arlene Foster’s DUP refuses to back it, claiming it erodes Northern Ireland’s constitutional position in the UK, while other parties support the deal, as do business leaders.

Mr Webb (above) was a BBC trainee journalist in Belfast during the Troubles. He lived on Wellington Park Avenue with the current science editor of BBC News, David Shukman. Mr Webb (57) said: “I came from London in the 1980s and there were bombs and bullets and soldiers and all the rest of it, but I was standing in the middle of Belfast and this little old lady came up to me and said, ‘Could you just help me across the road’.

“She kind of grasped my arm and we went across the road together and she said ‘thank you’ and off she went. I just thought that would never happen in south London.”

He went on to present Good Morning Ulster, and has also reported from America and Brussels before he joined the Today programme in 2009.

On Northern Ireland, he said: “Now, obviously, I come back and physically can’t recognise the place.”

But he warned against a return to sectarianism.

“Well, I think the problem is that young people don’t remember how awful it was and that’s part of one of the issues that we want to explore,” he commented.

“The memories fade in a good way, but they also fade in a bad way and it was so divided for so long and it was such a miserable experience for so many people that it’s almost inconceivable that people would knowingly go back to it.”

As a co-host on the flagship news show, Mr Webb is well versed on Brexit.

He commented: “Because of the Northern Ireland backstop being such a huge issue, we will be talking a little bit about what people are saying about it.

“I do feel that those questions are often answered in the studio in London and it will be interesting to hear them asked and answered at Ulster University.”

The show’s visit to Ulster University’s York Street campus in Belfast will be its first time in Northern Ireland, and it will be broadcast tomorrow from 6am to 9am.

Prospective guests include Professor Siobhan O’Neil, from mental health sciences at Ulster University; comedian and Give My Head Peace star Tim McGarry; Marie McDonald, who is producer of the BBC One comedy show Soft Border Patrol; Professor Jim Dornan from Queen’s University, Belfast; and Felicity Huston, former Commissioner for Public Appointments.

Topics due to be discussed by the panel and audience are mental health problems, comedy, the Troubles and a united Ireland.