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Abstract by the authors: The UK’s withdrawal from the European Union (EU) has enormous implications for Northern Ireland. All sides to the Brexit negotiations quickly agreed that it was vitally important to protect the peace process and to uphold the 1998 Good Friday (Belfast) Agreement. However, the question of how this was to be done soon became a point over which there were very apparent differences between the two sides; such differences are manifest within Northern Ireland in differing political views regarding European integration and national sovereignty. This paper explores the effects of EU membership on the peace process and the Agreement in light of the Brexit process. It provides an overview of the difficulties and frictions in finding a common approach from Northern Ireland to the EU and explains how this is manifest in the response to the Brexit referendum of June 2016. It concludes by considering some of the ways in which the Agreement itself offers means of navigating some of the more thorny issues arising as a result of the UK's withdrawal from the EU.
Abstract by the author: The vote by the electorate of the United Kingdom to leave the European Union in 2016 was one in which the impact of Brexit on the island of Ireland and on UK-Irish relations hardly figured. Within months, however, the ‘Irish border problem’ was centre stage. The deterioration in UK-Irish relations in the 2 years following the referendum was profound and marked the first stage in the potential unravelling of the deep interdependence which had come to characterise relations between Dublin and London by virtue of their shared membership of the European Union since 1973. A significant ‘reverse asymmetry of power’ emerged from the United Kingdom’s relative isolation in the Brexit negotiations and Ireland’s privileged position as an European Union insider. In an increasingly turbulent international arena, the retreat from integration set in train by Brexit also threatened the Good Friday Agreement and the institutions and processes put in place to manage North–South and East–West relations after 1998.
Abstract by the authors: Since 2006, according to the Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey, the largest portion of people in Northern Ireland identify themselves not as Unionist nor Nationalist but as Neither. This fact is difficult to tally with the patterns of polarised election results and the narratives of a ‘culture war’ that dominate most analyses of contemporary Northern Ireland. This article examines the existence of this large portion of the population in Northern Ireland who reject the identities upon which the 1998 Good Friday (Belfast) Agreement is centred. We find that those identifying as neither Unionist nor Nationalist are predominantly female, they come from all religious backgrounds, all age groups, and both British and Irish national identities. The majority of those who identify as Neither appear to do so as a statement of rejection of what is on offer from the political parties in Northern Ireland; rather than supporting a centrist party, they support no party at all. The article concludes that the 1998 Agreement has created the conditions for a growing number of people to identify as neither Unionist nor Nationalist, but at the same time it makes the emergence of any strong alternative, ‘third way’ type of politics difficult to envisage.
Abstract by the author: The land border between the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland, and an ‘Irish Sea border’ between the whole island and Great Britain, are pivotal to Brexit negotiations. A ‘hard’ land border with customs checks would damage the all-island economy and Ireland’s peace settlement and be highly porous. A sea border would be a less damaging and much more efficient option, but the Democratic Unionist Party claims it would undermine Northern Ireland’s constitutional position in the UK. A ‘hard’ border could be prevented and a sea border rendered unnecessary if the whole of the UK stayed in alignment with the EU’s Single Market, but that is unlikely. The threat of a ‘hard’ land border can be simply a bargaining ploy, but some Brexiters who prioritize new trade deals with other countries over maintaining existing trade with the EU press towards leaving the EU without an overall deal. That would push the conflict back to the EU’s so-called Backstop of a special arrangement for Northern Ireland along with the contentious ‘Irish Sea border’ option. This Commentary outlines the background and public discussion around the various alternatives in the Brexit negotiations, as seen from British, Irish and EU perspectives.
Abstract by the authors: This article explores how the British Conservative Party has dealt with the dilemmas arising from its pursuit of two increasingly discordant goals: delivering Brexit and maintaining the domestic Union. Drawing on interviews and analyses of parliamentary debates, we identify a resurgence in the 2016–2019 period of an older belief in a unitarist state, and a new form of pro-Union activism in policy terms. Against those commentators who depict Britain’s Conservatives as having abandoned their unionist vocation, we explore the coalescence of a more assertive and activist strain of unionist sentiment. But we also find a willingness among Conservatives at the centre to sub-contract thinking about non-English parts of the UK to ‘local’ political representatives such as the Democratic Unionist Party and the Scottish Conservatives, and a growing anxiety about how to handle emergent tensions between the competing priorities associated with delivering Brexit and maintaining the domestic Union.
Abstract by the author: The United Kingdom’s 23 June 2016 vote to leave the European Union represents an immense challenge for the Irish peace process. The implicit assumption of continuing British and Irish participation in Europe was woven into the terms of the Belfast Agreement of 1998, which brought an end to three decades of intercommunal violence known as the Troubles. This assumption underpinned guarantees to cross-border participation and equal treatment of the nationalist minority in Northern Ireland, regardless of the minority’s preference for British or Irish citizenship. Even before the referendum on EU membership, the political institutions established by the Belfast Agreement had proven tenuous. Now, the Brexit decision casts further doubt on the settlement’s future.
Abstract by the author: The Good Friday or Belfast Agreement was reached just over 20 years ago. This article introduces a special issue devoted to appraising its subsequent trajectory. It provides a brief resumé of the Agreement’s contents as a peace agreement, and as a regional consociation with confederal and federal possibilities. The outworkings and partial implementation of the Agreement are reviewed against a theoretical appraisal of the circumstances under which consociations decay, organically dissolve, or definitively break down. Northern Ireland is not in these circumstances, yet. The impact of UK’s referendum to leave the European Union (EU) is evaluated as well as ‘the year of the four votes’ in 2016-2017, which have jointly left Northern Ireland without a functioning executive or Assembly, and politically divided over the minority UK Conservative government’s plans to give effect to the referendum result—Northern Ireland voted to remain in the EU, and contrary to some suggestions, joint membership of the EU by the UK and Ireland was integral to the making and design of the 1998 Agreement. Future scenarios are sketched.
Abstract by the author: The people have spoken (but only, of course, when they were spoken to). And having spoken, they have discovered that their desire, hitherto so inconsequential, has unleashed a historic duty of fidelity to an event that has not yet and can never take place. Magical political thinking – self-delusion – demands that impossibility be made possible, now. In Northern Ireland, the people are less readily or certainly invoked. Journalistic interpretations of esoteric political processes proliferate and are shared, critiqued and fine-tuned on social media. Constitutional certainties disappear. A peace agreement directly quoting Irish deconstructionism has given birth to conjoined, vividly competing Northern Irelands, which share overlapping physical territory but have mutually exclusive political imaginaries. The sophistry of European bordering is nowhere more agile than in Northern Ireland after the Brexit referendum. Within all of these Northern Irelands, magical economic thinking attempts to will the post-conflict into being. What a time to be a futurologist!
Abstract by the author: The major impact of the Belfast Agreement was to engineer a peaceful coexistence between nationalism and unionism that involved each bloc recognising it had sufficient power to thwart the political ambitions of the other side, but not enough to push through its own agenda. This paper argues that Brexit seriously damages this peaceful coexistence and could trigger what is termed an Ulster war of attrition in which Northern Ireland becomes entrapped in a political stalemate where each side strives to triumph without having sufficient power to do so. It also argues that to restore internal political stability in Northern Ireland, and to indemnify against the risk of disorderly relationships between the British and Irish governments in the future, the strategic importance of Strand 3 of the Belfast Agreement requires strengthening.
Abstract by the author: The 1998 Good Friday/Belfast Peace Agreement was almost universally supported by nationalists in Northern Ireland, and Sinn Féin’s high-profile role in the discussions was the foundation upon which it would transform itself from the political wing of the Provisional Irish Republican Army to second biggest party at Stormont. However, dissidents pointed out that the compromises made by Sinn Féin during the Peace Process were a sell-out of the political and ideological aspirations held by republicans for at least a century. New dissident groups emerged in opposition to the course taken by Sinn Féin, and the period since 1998 has been one of the most dynamic in republican history since the Irish Civil War. New political parties and organisations like the 32 County Sovereignty Movement, éirígí, Republican Network for Unity and Saoradh emerged reflecting this state of flux and the existential fears felt by those for whom the Good Friday Agreement fell far short of delivering the republican aspiration of a united Ireland. Although Brexit provided a curious and fortunate opportunity for momentary public attention, these groups have remained peripheral actors in the Irish and British political public spheres.
Abstract by the authors: The 1998 Good Friday (Belfast) Agreement defined the conflict in Northern Ireland as being over the border between this part of the United Kingdom (UK) and the Republic of Ireland. This article defines and understands the Agreement as one of a number of ‘border regimes’ that operate between the two jurisdictions on the island of Ireland and, in doing so, seeks to explain how it is that Brexit has such significant implications for the management of conflict and mobility here. Against the backdrop of the European Union’s (EU’s) external border regimes, we argue that the most significant point about border regimes is not inclusion/exclusion across a state border but hierarchies of rights and treatment within a jurisdiction. This helps illustrate why it is that the UK’s withdrawal from the EU holds such significance for the peace process in Northern Ireland and for mobility within and across the islands of Ireland and Great Britain more broadly.
Abstract by the author: Assesses the complex forms of political agency generated by the British-Irish Agreement 1998, also known as the Belfast Agreement and the Good Friday Agreement. Comments on: the Agreement's power-sharing and other institutional arrangements; the weight it gives to the interaction of liberal consociationalism and EU integration; and the events and dynamics that have periodically destabilised the post-Agreement political institutions.
Abstract by the authors: For those who spoke on behalf of Leave voters, the result on 23 June 2016 meant the people of the United Kingdom were taking back ‘control’ or getting their ‘own country back’. However, two parts of the United Kingdom did not vote Leave: Scotland and Northern Ireland. Here, the significant counterpoint to ‘taking back control is “waking up in a different country”’, and this sentiment has unique political gravity. Its unique gravity involves two distinct but intimately related matters. The first concerns the politics of identity. The vote was mainly, if not entirely, along nationalist/unionist lines, confirming an old division: unionists were staking a ‘British’ identity by voting Leave, and nationalists an Irish one by voting Remain. The second concerns borders. The Good Friday/Belfast Agreement of 1998 meant taking the border out of Irish politics. Brexit means running the border between the European Union (EU) and the United Kingdom across the island as a sovereign ‘frontier’. Although this second matter is discussed mainly in terms of the implications for free movement of people and goods, we argue that it is freighted with meanings of identity. Brexit involves a ‘border in the mind’, those shifts in self-understanding, individually and collectively, attendant upon the referendum. This article examines this ‘border in the mind’ according to its effects on identity, politics and the constitution, and their implications for political stability in Northern Ireland.
Abstract by the author: As the only region containing a land frontier with a European Union from which the UK has chosen to depart, Northern Ireland will be particularly significantly affected by withdrawal. It is the prospect of the return of a ‘hard border’ partitioning the island of Ireland, not seen since the Troubles, which is perhaps of greatest concern. However, the status of the border is only one of several issues vexing Northern Ireland. This report concentrates upon the four most important: the lack of consent for withdrawal; the impact upon the Good Friday Agreement; the hardening of the border; and prospects for crossâborder trade.
Abstract by the author: The 20th anniversary of the signing of the Belfast Agreement comes at a time of great discord, both within Northern Ireland (where, at the time of writing, the power-sharing executive is suspended) and between the UK and the EU (where March 2019 is the date set for Brexit). Given the close political and economic relationships between Ireland and the UK, and the need for both states to ensure sustained prosperity within Northern Ireland to assist the maintenance of peace, any evaluation of the Agreement needs to be placed in the wider context of the island of Ireland and Britain and not just focused on Northern Ireland. The main economic aspects of the Agreement are summarised, as well as the historical background to island economic strategy and the operation of the Agreement itself, the disruptive role played by Brexit is assessed and some suggestions are made about what might be needed to deal with its outcome.
Abstract by the author: This paper shows why the Northern Ireland/Ireland border moved from a marginal to a core concern in the UK’s withdrawal from the EU (‘Brexit’). Drawing on longitudinal research on the impact of the EU on the Irish border, and contemporaneous research on the Phase 1 of negotiations of the UK’s withdrawal from the EU, it explains this case study through three broad themes. First, the impact of EU membership on the transformation of the border and, secondly, the challenges posed by Brexit to the border in practical and symbolic terms. Finally, it analyses how these have been addressed in the call for ‘specific solutions’ to meet the UK’s ambition of ‘avoiding a hard border’ after withdrawal. In so doing, it explores the ways in which the multi-layered complexities of a small, peripheral geographical region came to influence the course of the UK’s most important set of international negotiations for half a century.
Abstract by the author: The Brexit campaign to withdraw the United Kingdom from the European Union (EU) was driven primarily by opposition to immigration and the freedom of movement of EU workers to Britain. Consequently, a central focus of Brexit was the perceived need for bordering, that is, the strengthening of Britain’s borders as security barriers to prevent the movement of these unwanted outsiders to Britain. Such bordering has the potential to turn the tide against decades of debordering on the island of Ireland that was delivered by Europeanisation, the North South provisions of the Good Friday Agreement and a wealth of cross-border cooperation initiatives. From an open Irish border vantage point, this paper explores three Brexit bordering options: bordering the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland; bordering Britain and bordering the isles of Britain and Ireland. The argument is that the least costly one is to confine Brexit bordering to the island of Great Britain.
Abstract by the author: This article aims to examine the impact of the Good Friday Agreement on British–Irish intergovernmental cooperation and cross-border Irish/Northern Irish civil cooperation from 2001 to 2017. It also makes provisional observations about Brexit’s impact. British–Irish and cross-border cooperation were emphasised as integral to resolving the conflict in Northern Ireland by successive Irish governments and by the Social Democratic and Labour Party in Northern Ireland. Therefore, in assessing the Good Friday Agreement’s overall significance, it is essential to examine its impact on administrative and intergovernmental cooperation. It will be shown that Good Friday agreement's institutions for intergovernmental and East–West relations were under-utilised before Brexit and so were not equipped to deal with Brexit's challenges in 2016–2018. However, a legally enshrined institutionalised relationship, whether by empowering the Good Friday's institutions and/ or by creating a new legal agreement, will be needed in the years ahead if and when Brexit happens.
Abstract by the authors: The Good Friday Agreement in 1998, appeared to have put an end to the political violence between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland. However, although violence has been reduced after the Good Friday Agreement, the conflict between the two groups, which has deep historical roots, is more likely to be considered a continuous problem on the island. In the Brexit climate where the contested rhetoric of ‘sovereignty’ is salient, the integrationist process of the GFA may reverse into re-segregation and ancient enmities between denominational groups. Therefore, using both psychological and historical analyses, this article discusses how Brexit affects national identity dynamics in post-conflict Northern Ireland from a political psychological perspective.
Abstract by the author: The legitimacy of the partition of Ireland has been inextricably bound up with interpretations of self-determination. The creation of Northern Ireland following the First World War was just about defensible in terms of the understanding of the principle of national self-determination prevalent at the time. But in the context of the post-colonial emphasis on territory in establishing who was entitled to self-determination, Northern Ireland’s status as a conditional part of the United Kingdom appeared anomalous and facilitated the province’s portrayal as a colonial leftover. The Troubles compounded Northern Ireland’s lack of international legitimacy. In the 1990s there were further changes, including a post–Cold War easing of the anathema against secession. This and other alterations in the interpretation of self-determination meant that Northern Ireland no longer stood out as a relic of imperialism, creating the space for the acceptance of Northern Ireland as an internationally legitimate political entity under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement. This favorable external environment for the settlement did not endure. Of the external challenges to the accord, the most serious is Brexit. Its implementation would end what was taken for granted in the 1998 accord, that British and Irish management of the Northern Ireland problem would continue to be facilitated by the two countries’ common interests arising from their membership of the European Union. The article explores the implications of this potential disruption and its bearing on the issue of Irish self-determination.
Abstract by the author: The Protocol, which is designed to keep the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland "soft" or invisible, offers a story of intellectual intrigue and dismal duplicity. Its intellectual value lies in the confirmation that the EU is, contrary to its rhetoric, prepared to insist on commitment to some but not all of its economic freedoms in particular, and its internal market acquis in general, as the price for keeping one of its external borders unguarded. The consequence, however, is that an as yet imprecisely defined border is required between Northern Ireland and Great Britain, which harms the UK’s own internal market. The duplicity which generated this damaging outcome is emblematic of the dishonesty at the heart of the entire Brexit campaign, the full implications of which are yet to emerge.
Abstract by the author: Brexit is not solely a UK crisis. Ireland, more than any other member state, stands to be deeply and profoundly impacted by the UK’s departure from the EU. The crisis which Ireland faces is multi-dimensional: economic and political, constitutional and existential in nature. The nature and impact of Brexit changes Ireland’s relationship with the EU, and this is because the UK’s decision to leave the European bloc is also a crisis for the EU. Brexit challenges the balance between intergovernmental and supranational institutions and dynamics in the EU; alters power and policy balances; and adds a degree of contingency to EU membership for all member-states. This article explores the various political, economic and constitutional crises generated for Ireland by the Brexit vote and assesses how Brexit impacts on the Europeanisation and/or de-Europeanisation of the Irish political system and British–Irish relations. This includes an analysis of the extent to which the traditional Europeanised characteristics of the Ireland-EU relationship and the British–Irish relationship will endure or perish within the confines of a post-Brexit EU.
Abstract by the author: In many post-conflict societies, political actors battle to ensure the dominancy of their preferred narratives regarding the causes of and responsibilities for past violence. They wage these conflicts about the conflict to instrumentalise narratives of the past to serve their contemporary political aims, but in doing so, they contribute to the endurance of societal divisions which can have destructive effects on the promotion of reconciliation and political stability. Metaconflicts can be particularly heated with respect to the design and implementation of measures to deliver victims’ rights to truth, justice and reparations, as it is through these processes that competing and complex communal narratives of the past are exposed and challenged. This article interrogates how metaconflicts shape political actors’ engagement with or resistance to international legal obligations to investigate and prosecute past violations. The approaches of Northern Ireland's Unionist political parties and Unionist-aligned organisations to the United Kingdom's obligations under the European Convention of Human Rights are used as a case study. Through theoretically informed qualitative analysis of publicly available submissions made by these groups to an official consultation and parliamentary inquiries taking place during 2018, this article identifies four strategies used by Unionists to resist approaches to dealing with the past that they view as contrary to their interests. On this basis, the article argues that these actors understand law as a means to construct and provide official recognition for communally resonant moral and social categories and norms, and that, as such, legal principles such as the equality of the law, non-discrimination and independence within the criminal justice process are viewed as secondary to political concerns. It concludes that reducing the metaconflict's destructive effects requires all parties to recognise the need for political generosity and compromise and to develop more substantive engagement with the principles of universality and equality underpinning international human rights law.
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