PEACE PROCESS MUST FOCUS MINDS TO FIND A SOLUTION

TIME and again we have heard there can be no going back to the past, but unless better care is taken we could easily trip over its baggage. The heated language used in the past few weeks concerning a hard Border and the North has taken on a sinister echo. From Arlene Foster’s blood-red lines through to Sammy Wilson’s attack on the Taoiseach as “despicable, low and rotten”, the tone of menace is impossible to ignore.

Frustrations attached to Brexit would test the patience of Job, but, as Theresa May noted, there is a duty of respect.

Mr Wilson attacked Leo Varadkar for using victims of paramilitary violence to scaremonger over Brexit.

This is neither fair nor accurate. Mr Varadkar merely referenced an IRA bomb attack at a customs post in Newry, Co Down, in 1972 that left nine people dead, during an address to EU leaders. His point was that we would do better to keep these memories carved in our hearts rather than on headstones.

The restoration of a hard Border on these islands has the potential for disaster.

The PSNI has spoken of the threat from dissident republicans. Ignoring the danger will not make it disappear. One definition of reality is something that even when you stop believing in it, it refuses to go away.

The Good Friday Agreement has given us an escape route from violence that previous generations were cheated of. It was a tunnel out of a darkness we must never revisit.

The current loss of confidence and retreat to the bunkers is polarising and destabilising. Hopefully, some headway can be made through the EU offer to give Theresa May more time.

The bitter truth is that most of Mrs May’s travails are not in Brussels, but at home. As one senior EU official put it, “she needs to choose who she is going to upset”, but it is becoming increasingly obvious she will get no thanks either way.

The importance of preserving the peace process throughout the Brexit process must be paramount. All those invested in democratic politics must bear this in mind. There are other actors with subversive motives intent on reversing the enormous progress made in the last two decades.

No one is dwelling on the prospect of a return to violence, but peace is fragile and divides on the North are deepening. The only way to negate a threat is to focus on solutions. We can not forget the terrible legacy that the Troubles left us.

According to Michel Barnier, a Brexit deal with the United Kingdom is 90pc done.

The choices we make in the next few months will determine the kinds of legacies we leave.

In respect to all that has been sacrificed, we owe it to all to complete the final steps. There can be no going back.

History has a terrible way of reminding us that it is only when the light shines upon the bloodshed that darkness truly shows itself.

It’s better to keep the memories of violence carved in our hearts rather than on headstones