Northern Irish politics to be dominated by border again
The vote to leave the EU breaches the spirit of the Good Friday agreement and could lead to its unravelling
O ne remarkable feature of the Brexit debate is the sense of resignation with which the losers accepted defeat. The rooted constitutionalism of the English — and the same is true of the Scots — is so far taken for granted that we think of it as a genetic trait rather than the product of fortunate historical circumstance.
In Northern Ireland, where I grew up, habits of constitutionalism were weak. Mass protest and violent confrontation were part of the political culture and substantial minorities on both sides supported or tolerated paramilitary shootings and bombings. The Irish border passed my hometown, a few miles to the west, and looped southwards. The militarised villages and farmlands of south Armagh were close by, where Irish Republican Army (IRA) teams built the bombs designed for Bishopsgate and Canary Wharf, and the last British soldier to die during the Troubles, Lance Bombardier Stephen Restorick, was shot by a sniper, just a year before the Good Friday Agreement. That irregular, porous, 300mile (482km) line, with its rich traditions of smuggling, sectarianism and armed insurgency, is now set to become the border between the UK and the European Union (EU).
That Ireland can be both one unit and two separate ones has enabled former enemies to live in peace. It is true that those constituencies where Brexit triumphed — seven out of 18 — were unionist strongholds. The message that European bureaucracy, immigrants and cosmopolitanism all pose a threat to British values resonated strongly there. But precisely because the referendum was not a border poll, it also expressed many of the wider social, cultural and generational divisions found in England and Wales. The 56 per cent majority for Remain contained many liberal unionists who felt the EU offered them economic security, political stability or broader cultural horizons.
A significant proportion of the 1.5 billion euro (Dh6.05 billion) of the EU’s Northern Ireland peace programme went to border communities and helped to ensure that both nationalists and unionists felt they benefited. Indeed the cross-border bodies set up under the agreement have been one of its least controversial areas. In addition to a complex network of political institutions, the Good Friday agreement formulated a knotty political doctrine. Irish nationalists believed the proper unit of decision-making was the island of Ireland and the Irish people had therefore been denied their right to self-determination since partition.
A single, self-determining unit
The agreement presented a superbly Jesuitical solution: It was “for the people of the island of Ireland alone, by agreement between the two parts respectively and without external impediment, to exercise their right to self-determination”. So Ireland was a single, self-determining unit — and without explicit recognition of that principle, the IRA and Sinn Fein could not have been persuaded to accept the agreement — but it took the form of two distinct jurisdictions.
There is nothing in the agreement to stop the British government from taking Northern Ireland out of the EU. Ireland’s right to self-determination applies to one question only — whether Ireland should become united. But Brexit undermines the spirit of Good Friday in several ways. First, the agreement clearly envisaged that Northern Ireland’s future constitutional arrangements would be worked out in the context of continuing partnership between the north and the south, and between politicians in London and Dublin. To remove Northern Ireland from Europe without its consent is not only morally wrong and politically risky; it is also a rejection of the fundamental bilateralism of the peace process. Second, the all-Ireland dimension of the Belfast agreement was fundamental to securing the support of nationalists. That Ireland can be both one unit and two separate units may be a bizarre political fiction, but it is a fiction that has enabled former enemies to live with one another in relative peace. The creation of a hard border along a line that has been invisible for many years is at odds with the full recognition of nationalist aspirations enshrined in the settlement.
The irony of this predicament is that it comes so soon after the ghosts of Irish history were apparently laid to rest. The centenary of the 1916 rising produced plenty of selfcongratulation, hagiography and commercial opportunism. But above all the Easter commemorations were characterised by maturity and inclusivity.
England’s unilateral declaration of independence means that the border will dominate politics again, in Dublin as well as Belfast. In addressing this problem, one can only hope politicians there will demonstrate more responsibility than their counterparts in London. Ian McBride is professor of Irish and British History at King’s College London.