Change in Belfast requires broad consent, Blair says

The Good Friday Agreement should only be amended if all communities in Northern Ireland agree to the changes, former UK prime minister Tony Blair has said.

He played a pivotal role in negotiating the accord, which ended three decades of violence in Northern Ireland.

The deal, which will have its 25th anniversary next week, also set out how the country was to be governed.

The current system in the Northern Ireland Assembly is based on mutual veto powers that enable blocs of unionist and nationalist members to halt moves that otherwise have majority support.

The assembly is at an impasse after the Democratic Unionist Party refused to back the UK government’s Brexit trade rules with the EU. British authorities have been urged by some of the DUP’s rivals to change the rules to allow members to get back to work in Stormont.

Mr Blair said the system should only be altered if there is support from all factions of Northern Irish politics.

“People often ask me whether there’s a case for reviewing the Good Friday Agreement, the institutions, the way one party essentially can veto the process,” he said.

“I always say that of course there is a case for reviewing it and, in time, maybe that review process will yield a change.

“But I don’t think you can yield a change that’s going to work unless it brings the communities together.”

There is a difference between “the ideal answer and the realistic answer” in Northern Irish politics, he said.

“The ideal answer may be that you change the whole system, by the way you choose ministers or have the executive up and running,” Mr Blair said.

“But the realistic truth is that if you were to act, for example, in direct contravention of a large part of unionist opinion, it wouldn’t work.”

The negotiations that led to the Good Friday Agreement offer lessons to the current generation of politicians in Northern Ireland, he said.

“It was agonising, but it’s an interesting reflection on politics that it works best when leaders are prepared to say even to their own supporters things that are uncomfortable,” Mr Blair said.

The leaders of Unionist and nationalist parties at the time “rose above all the petty things in politics and did something substantial and will be remembered for it”, he said.

“I think these agreements can always be made if there’s leadership. The essence of leadership is being prepared to do difficult things,” he added.

Mr Blair emphasised there was still work to do to ease tensions in Northern Ireland.

“One thing I learnt about the peace process is you can create an agreement, and you can create a legal framework, and you can do the reforms and pass the laws, but that’s not the same as two communities trusting each other,” he said.

“I think it just takes time, it takes quite a lot of time. I think there’s still a lot of reconciliation to happen.

“But at least if there’s peace and, if we get back to some form of political stability, you’ve got the right circumstances for that reconciliation.”

Negotiating the Good Friday Agreement was a key part of his time as the UK’s leader, Mr Blair said.

“The first speech I made when I was prime minister was in Northern Ireland,” he said.

“I was determined from the outset to give it a real go.

“I realised [his predecessor] John Major had put a lot of effort in. I thought we could, if we really worked at it, bring it to an agreement.

“We then negotiated. Of course, it was a big part of what I did, but it could never be done without those other people, the leaders there in the community in Northern Ireland being prepared to lead.”

■ The Northern Ireland Assembly is at an impasse after the DUP refused to back the UK’s Brexit trade rules