Backstop is so important

THOSE who dismiss the inclusion of backstop arrangements in any Brexit deal should realise how important these are, not only to achieve a good deal for the UK but in order to safeguard the peace process, of vital importance to the people of the Republic of Ireland and those of Northern Ireland.

The backstop is not evidence of a devious plot by scheming EU negotiators doing their best to trap this country into a binding arrangement in order to keep us chained to Brussels against our will.

The idea behind the backstop is to maintain the peace delivered by the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 which brought to an end many years of bloody conflict in Northern Ireland. For one part of an island to be inside the EU and for the other to be outside is a conundrum which has exercised armies of civil servants employed by Mrs May and the EU negotiators and it is something which is paramount in the negotiations if peace is to be preserved.

It is worth remembering that the bonds between the Irish, whether they be from the north or the south, are part and parcel of the fabric of the British Isles, free passage between the two parts of Ireland is central to the continuing success of the Good Friday Agreement as it is to the backstop.

Regardless of the ‘official’ relations between the people of the island of Ireland and those of the mainland there has always been a great movement and mixing of the ordinary people.

When the chips are down, the residents from across the Irish Sea have aligned themselves with the English, the Scots, the Welsh and all the others who make up these islands.

We must not let them down now, at this challenging moment in our history. Rod Slater, Lymm