Noel Whelan: Ignorance of Ireland returns to bite Tories

Resentment is one of the most futile and destructive of human emotions. Arising as it does from a mixture of disappointment, anger and fear, it is particularly dangerous in politics. This week commentary on Brexit from the conservative press in Britain and from Brexiteers in parliament drips with resentment that Irish issues remain the sticking point in Brexit negotiations.

This resentment is accompanied by enduring ignorance of the political, economic, legal and constitutional challenges which Brexit presents for Northern Ireland. It is truly shocking that some of this ill-informed comment had come from former Northern Ireland secretaries like Owen Patterson and Theresa Villiers. It is disturbing to think that they once had ministerial responsibility for Northern Ireland and yet seem to have learned so little about its politics or about the multilayered complexities of Anglo-Irish relations.

At this crucial moment in the history of these islands, it is worth trying to succinctly set out, once more, the factors placing Northern Ireland in such a delicate position at the heart of the Brexit negotiations.

The first factor of course is blindingly obvious: Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom which will have a land border with the European Union after Brexit. That fact alone would have required special considerations even if that border were not itself laden with historical, political and psychological baggage. Not only do the usual trans- frontier complications arise but the level of economic entanglement is not merely reflected in the volume of trade but further complicated by the cross-Border supply and processing realities particularly in the food-processing industry. In addition there is a particular intensity in the movement of people as workers, friends and family back and forth over the Irish Border.

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Centuries of strife

Second of course that UK-EU frontier post Brexit will be along the sensitive fault line of British-Irish relations. Brexit comes after a time when our two nations – after centuries of strife and relatively recent decades of violence – managed to mediate their differences within new arrangements under the 1997 Belfast Agreement. Brexit erodes the foundations of that agreement, which were deeply sunk in the context and atmosphere of our mutual membership of the European Union. Brexit also imperils the work of the many cross-Border bodies which have since been established and the close working relationship which had developed between politicians and officials on both sides.

The hardened Border that is to some degree inevitable post-Brexit also comes with a significant security dimension. Speaking to the House of Commons Northern Ireland committee last June, PSNI Chief Constable George Hamilton repeated his assessment that any kind of checkpoint along the Irish Border would quickly become an “obvious and static” target and that dissidents would attempt to exploit any additional law enforcement activity along the Border to garner support, recruit new members and attack police officers.

Dissidents would attempt to exploit any additional law enforcement activity along the Border to garner support, recruit new members and attack police officers

This is not scaremongering. Practical steps are already been taken to address the risk. Hamilton told MPs that the PSNI has sought funding to recruit 400 new officers for post-Brexit Border security. The PSNI has halted the sale of Border police stations at Castlederg and Aughnacloy in Co Tyrone and Warrenpoint in Co Down as a “precautionary step” over Brexit.

Political dynamics

Most significantly of all, Brexit has had an impact on the precarious political dynamics within Northern Ireland itself. Not only did Northern Ireland, unlike England and Wales, vote against Brexit but the divisions over Brexit in Northern Ireland broke down largely along the traditional dividing lines. In the UK as a whole, 51.9 per cent voted to leave the EU, while 48.1 per cent voted to remain. In Northern Ireland, the result was the opposite: 55.8 per cent voted to remain, with 44.2 per cent voting to leave.

Unionist-dominated voting areas tended to vote to leave, while nationalist-dominated areas tended to vote to remain. As Prof Jonathan Tonge of the University of Liverpool told the House of Lords European Affairs committee, 89 per cent of nationalists voted to remain but only 35 per cent of unionists did so. Some 88 per cent of those identifying as Irish voted to remain as against 38 per cent of those identifying as British. Some 85 per cent of Catholics voted to remain against 41 per cent of Protestants. Whereas 86 per cent of Sinn Féin voters and 92 per cent of Sinn Féin supporters voted to remain, 46 per cent of UUP voters and 30 per cent of DUP voters voted to remain.

The additional dimension which membership of the European Union brought to law, to government and to identity has been a key element in dampening contentious questions of identity and sovereignty in Northern Ireland. Now, however, in Tonge’s words, “the binary divide is being reinforced in Northern Ireland by Brexit”.

These are among the inconvenient truths which Brexiteers are now forced to face. Not for the first time English nationalists have come to regard Ireland as a nuisance but yet again they themselves have authored the difficulties.