[Politics] Brexit inflames North’s identity politics

[Love Pulse]

 

he 1998 Belfast Agreement never resolved the Northern Ireland conflict, it merely sidelined it. It shifted the zero-sum politics to an accommodation of difference. Neither side won, neither side lost. Unionists had to share power, nationalists had to sign up to an internal settlement.

Critics say it has delivered peace without reconciliation. Simmering community tensions; ongoing segregation and/or the fact that the North’s devolved government has been inoperable for three of the last five years feed into that viewpoint.

But it undervalues what has been achieved: the equality of political, social and cultural rights; the emergence of centre-ground politics; and, of course, peace itself, perhaps the most undervalued commodity.

 

Brexit, however, runs counter to the politics of the Belfast Agreement. With its binary equations – soft/hard, inside/outside, deal/no deal – it reapplies the zero-sum dynamic.

Border
The avoidance of a hard border on the island can, in many ways, be seen as an extension of the compact afforded Northern nationalists under the Belfast Agreement, namely that their relationship with Dublin be recognised.

And if you concede that, then the DUP’s complaint that a border in the Irish Sea breaches the compact afforded unionists – in terms of their political affiliation with London – is logical.

 

 

It’s an irony then that the most sane attempt to circumvent the border issue - former UK prime minister Theresa May’s backstop arrangement – which would have placed the whole of the UK in the EU customs union – was torpedoed by the DUP. The party may have gambled on a no-deal and an ensuing land border. Either way it was politically outmanoeuvred and is now backed into a corner on the issue.

From an EU perspective, the sea border solution was the only practical one – a porous 500km land border would have threatened the integrity of the single market.