Brexit and Stormont crisis could reignite violence, says Haass
A FORMER US diplomat who once chaired power-sharing talks in the North has said that the threat posed by Brexit and the absence of the Assembly could lead to a return to violence.
Richard Haass, who succeeded Senator George Mitchell as the US special envoy for Northern Ireland, said the region was at ‘crisis point’ as a result of poor leadership, Brexit and a failure to confront its past.
He claimed the current problems facing Stormont would spur a push for a united Ireland, and raised fears of a return of violence in the North.
Mr Haass is experienced in Northern politics, having chaired talks in a previous Stormont deadlock in 2013, but failed to secure progress on key contentious issues like flags, parades and the legacy of the Troubles.
‘Northern Ireland at a crisis point, the result of poor leadership, Brexit, and a failure to deal with the past. [I] agree the current impasse likely to lead to restructuring of its politics and/or push for Irish unification. [I am] hoping it does not lead to resumption of
‘Men of violence in the shadows’
violence,’ he tweeted on Tuesday.
This month, SDLP politician Claire Hanna said the return of a hard border would be ‘a disaster’ for the peace process, and warned there are ‘men of violence lurking in the shadows here’.
And earlier this year former taoiseach Bertie Ahern, who played a key role in securing the Good Friday Agreement, said a hard border with the North would bring with it the threat of a return to the violence of the past.
‘For the nationalist community in Northern Ireland, the Good Friday Agreement was about removing barriers, integrating across the island, working democratically in the absence of violence – and if you take that away, as the Brexit vote does, that has a destabilising effect,’ he said.
But Professor Gary Murphy, Head of Law & Government at DCU, said he does not believe there is any evidence that a hard border would bring bloodshed along with it.
He told the Irish Daily Mail: ‘I’m not really convinced at all about this idea that the Brexit will lead to the return of violence, I think it’s overstated and exaggerated.
‘I cannot see that after 20 years of the Good Friday Agreement, and stability in the North, that Brexit has the potential to spark a return to the violence of the past. The men of violence have been marginalised and cast aside. Everything I know about Irish politics says the IRA gave up on this war because it couldn’t be won, they had grown tired of it and they didn’t want their children to be fighting the same war they did,’ he added.
He said that while a push for a united Ireland would lead to the increasing polarisation of communities in the North, that would not necessarily bring about an end to the peace process.
‘Obviously, in terms of a united Ireland, the polarisation of Northern Ireland now is quite significant. It’s as profound now as it ever was. A hard border would add to that, there’s no doubt. But I don’t think the link between that polarisation and the return of violence should be easily made’ he said.
‘I’m not convinced a hard border ergo means a return to violence. The conflict that began in 1969 was not just about the border, the border was a very small part of it. For the most part it was about civil rights, and that’s an issue which has largely been consigned to the past.’
Mr Murphy said it was unhelpful that such claims were being made without evidence to back them up, and was doubtful there are even enough people who could be convinced that a return to violence is the answer to mount any kind of campaign.
‘I think what is unhelpful is people making these statements without hard evidence to back them up. Where is the evidence that a hard border would result in a return to violence? The people of the North will not easily turn their back on two decades of hard-won peace,’ he said.