4/23/2021 Can Northern Ireland survive Brexit?

– POLITICO

DISUNITED KINGDOM

Can Northern Ireland survive Brexit?

Those who dream of a united Ireland see hope in the economic unity between north and
south provided by the Brexit deal.

Illustration by Simon Bridgland for POLITICO

BY SHAWN POGATCHNIK AND GIOVANNA COI

April 13, 2021 2:21 pm

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This article is part of a special report on the Disunited Kingdom.

BELFAST — Northern Ireland this year marks its hundredth birthday, but political forces
unleashed by Brexit are raising doubts about how much longer this unsettled state can survive.

Through decades of war and peace, Irish nationalists have dreamed of a day when Northern
Ireland would leave the United Kingdom and join the Republic of Ireland, ending a 1921 partition
that carved the island into a largely Irish Catholic south and British Protestant north.

They see the Conservative Party’s insistence upon a “hard” Brexit — attained at the cost of
leaving Northern Ireland inside the EU single market — as opening the door for winning a
referendum on Irish unity.

Irish nationalists are buoyed by demographic and electoral shifts showing that Northern Ireland, a
state created a century ago to ensure a solid Protestant unionist majority, no longer has one.
Results from new census data still being tabulated are expected to show that Catholics outnumber
Protestants following decades of higher birth rates and lower emigration.

In the 2016 Brexit referendum, 55.8 percent of Northern Ireland voters said they wanted to stay in
the EU. Catholics overwhelmingly backed Remain, but so did one-third of British unionists, some
of whom may be more willing to stomach joining their state to the Republic of Ireland if they
could reclaim their European citizenship in the bargain.

THE GREENING OF NORTHERN IRELAND

A half-century of electoral gains for Irish nationalists at British unionists' expense.

Results in key Northern Ireland Westminster elections, by constituency. Constituencies are

shaded in orange if the elected MP belonged to a unionist party, green if they ran with a
nationalist party, yellow they were from the Alliance party.

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SOURCE: ARK, POLITICO research

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Sinn Féin, the only major political party that contests elections in both parts of Ireland, senses
that post-Brexit blues could tip a unity vote narrowly in their favor. The 1998 Good Friday peace
agreement is emphatic that such a referendum would require only simple majorities in both parts
of Ireland to break Northern Ireland’s constitutional bonds with Britain.

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Before the ink was dry on the EU-U.K. trade deal clinched on Christmas Eve, Sinn Féin leader
Mary Lou McDonald declared that Irish unity now represented the best path for Northern Ireland
to rejoin Europe. “EU leaders have accepted the unique position of Ireland and have agreed that
the north will automatically become part of the EU in the context of a united Ireland,” she said
that night.

Sinn Féin’s ambition to govern in both Belfast and Dublin reflects its core objective to eliminate
the 310-mile (500-kilometer) border bisecting the island. It hopes that gaining power can deliver
what its retired paramilitary partner, the Provisional IRA, signally failed to achieve during
decades of bloodshed that only hardened unionist attitudes against Irish unity.

For their part, unionist leaders in one breath dismiss the idea of ever losing a vote to stay in the
U.K. — and in the next warn fatalistically that, should it come to pass, the IRA’s demand of “Brits
out!” may finally come true.

“I don’t think I would feel comfortable. That’s why I would leave,” said First Minister Arlene
Foster, leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, who imagines resettling in England if Northern
Ireland voted itself out of existence.

Imagining such a retreat seems all the more remarkable given Foster’s childhood experience of
IRA attacks: first when her policeman father was shot and badly wounded at their front door,
then when her school bus was bombed. Such violence spurred many Protestants to flee Foster’s
native border county of Fermanagh, where she still lives in an increasingly nationalist community.

Foster said too many nationalists still consider her identity to be a self-delusion, “that all I need to
do is realize that I’m Irish and not British at all — but you can’t be a unionist if there’s no union.”

Invisible border

The border is barely visible today, thanks to the legacy of Britain and Ireland’s shared EU
membership and their joint delivery of the Good Friday accord.

On most of approximately 300 road crossings, the only signs that drivers have crossed an
international boundary are the speed limits: British miles in the north, European kilometers in the
south.

Since 1993, the EU’s customs union has allowed cross-border commerce to flow freely. Border
posts that were a lightning rod for IRA attacks have been bulldozed or left to ruin.

The Provisional IRA ceased fire in 1997 so that Sinn Féin could join negotiations that led to Good
Friday; they disarmed in belated fulfillment of the peace deal seven years later. The British army,
in response, dismantled its network of forts and watchtowers along a frontier branded “bandit
country.”

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FROM ORANGE STATE TO CHANGING STATE

For the rst half of Northern Ireland's existence, its Protestant majority monopolized power
through the Ulster Unionist Party and the Orange Order brotherhood. Amid three decades
of bloodshed known as "The Troubles," new Irish political forces rallied a growing Catholic
population for change. Nationalist parties nally overtook unionists in the most recent U.K.
vote.

Westminster election results in Northern Ireland, by election year, with seats won by each
side.
1922 11 2
1924 13
1929 11 2
1931 11 2
1935 11 2
1945 10 1 2
1950 10 2
1951 9 1 2
1955 11 1
1959 12
1964 12
1966 11 1
1970 9 3
Feb. 1974 11 1
Oct. 1974 10 2
1979 10 2
1983 15 2
1987 13 4
1992 13 4
1997 13 5
2001 11 7
2005 10 8
2010 9 1 8
2015 11 7
2017 11 7
2019 8 1 9
0% 50% 100%
Unionists Other Nationalists

MORE THAN ONE FAULT LINE

Map of Northern Ireland constituencies and how they voted in the 2016 Brexit referendum
and in the 2019 general election.
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2016 referendum 2019 election

Leave Remain Unionists Nationalists Alliance

SOURCE: POLITICO research

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When a narrow majority of U.K. voters backed Brexit, they unwittingly risked reviving that
security nightmare. Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s acceptance of a compromise deal that kept
Northern Ireland essentially within the EU's single market was a fundamental shock to the
region's unionists. They mostly backed Brexit but despise the section of the agreement governing
the special arrangements for Northern Ireland known as the Irish protocol.

the protocol obliges Northern Ireland ports to enforce EU requirements on goods arriving from
England, Scotland and Wales. This “sea border” within the U.K. means no such restrictions apply
on goods crossing the Irish border. This new arrangement promotes what its nationalist
supporters and unionist critics both call “an economic united Ireland.”

The sense of betrayal among unionists is visceral. "What did we do to members on those benches
over there to be screwed over by this protocol?" Ian Paisley Jr., a member of the Democratic
Unionist Party, asked Conservative MPs across the House of Commons chamber.

But while the protocol has made trade with Britain harder, it has opened up other opportunities.
While some firms in Britain have stopped shipping to both parts of Ireland citing higher costs and
red tape, cross-border commerce on the island has jumped by 10 percent within the first few
months of post-Brexit trade.

It’s increasingly common to see “Product of Ireland” on produce in northern supermarkets.

Northern Irish manufacturers are winning new contracts in the south at the expense of larger
English-based firms that now stru gle to clear goods through Dublin Port. The Irish government
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— a coalition that excludes Sinn Féin — sees this steady growth in common economic interests as
helping to pave the way to eventual Irish unity.

Take it slow

Unlike Sinn Féin, with its a gressive calls for an early referendum, the government doesn’t want
to set any date. Prime Minister Micheál Martin and his Fianna Fáil party, as well as Deputy Prime
Minister Leo Varadkar and his Fine Gael party, envision a much slower e ort of winning unionist
hearts and minds — not overruling them.

They cite a key lesson from the Brexit referendum: Don’t ask voters to make a choice without an
agreed picture of what that choice would mean in practice.

Before any Irish referendum, Martin and Varadkar argue, agreement must already have been
reached with a sizeable section of unionist opinion about the structures and symbols of an all-
Ireland state. “We need to discuss how we would accommodate 1 million people on this island
who identify as British, who are British,” Varadkar, the former prime minister, told RTÉ.

Demanding a referendum soon, as recent Sinn Féin ads in the New York Times and Washington
Post have done, “would be like setting a date for your marriage before a courtship,” he said.

Martin has dismissed the idea of holding a referendum within the lifetime of his government,
which could last until early 2025. Instead he has created a Shared Island unit within his o ce
with a €500 million budget to spend on cross-border dialogue, research and infrastructure. To say
that Shared Island has failed to capture the public imagination is an understatement. Most of its
video content has attracted viewers only in the dozens.

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IRISH UNIFICATION POLL OF POLLS

Surveys show Northern Ireland opinion narrowing on whether to stay in the U.K. or join the Republic
of Ireland.

ALL 2 YEARS 1 YEAR 6 MONTHS KALMAN SMOOTH KALMAN

Feb 22

50 %
No 48 %
45 %

40 % Yes 39 %

35 %

30 %

25 %

20 %

15 %
Undecided 13 %
10 %

5%

0%
ay

ne

ly

er

21

il
s

be

be

be

r
ar

c
Ju

gu

Ap
ob
M

ar
Ju

20

u
m

m
Au

br

M
ct
e

e
O
pt

ov

ec

Fe
Se

For more polling data from across Europe visit POLITICO Poll of Polls.

Sinn Féin, by contrast, sees its unity campaign as a driver of its rising popularity. Since ending its
boycott of electoral politics on the back of the IRA’s 1981 prison hunger strikes, Sinn Féin has
grown from a fringe — and often censored — voice to become the largest nationalist party in
Northern Ireland. Next year, it hopes to overtake the Democratic Unionists as the largest party in
the Northern Ireland Assembly.

It’s close to achieving that feat south of the border too, falling narrowly short in the February
2020 election only because the party didn’t run enough candidates to capitalize on its poll-
topping vote.

Sinn Féin now spearheads parliamentary debates in Dublin as the main opposition, while the
traditional poles of southern politics, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, share a Cabinet table for the first
time.
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Those angling to topple Martin from within and revive Fianna Fáil’s fortunes are promoting their
own visions of Irish unity in a bid to keep Sinn Féin from cornering that market.

One backbencher billed as a future Fianna Fáil leader, Jim O’Callaghan, has launched his own
website to promote his blueprint for what he emphasizes would be “a new country.” In
O’Callaghan’s plan, a new Ireland would have a bicameral legislature, with its upper house at
Stormont, Northern Ireland’s seat of power overlooking Belfast.

The government would reserve a minimum number of Cabinet posts for northern unionists, a
form of guaranteed power sharing that O’Callaghan argues would give unionists more influence
than they manage as a tiny bloc in Westminster. A new constitution would enshrine equal rights
for its Irish and British citizens.

The 21st century economic landscape, he argues, o ers Northern Ireland a better route to
prosperity via Dublin, not London. While the south consistently tops Europe’s growth table
driven by high-tech foreign investment, Northern Ireland’s top employer is the British civil
service. The U.K. spent nearly £28 billion in Northern Ireland in 2019, but raised just £18.5 billion
in local taxes, reflecting the region’s high costs and low productivity.

Arguments that Northern Ireland couldn’t cope without British subsidies are “strangely defeatist,”
O’Callaghan argues in his plan. “It does not have to be that way. Harnessing the strength of the
whole island would help make these six counties a more prosperous region of a prosperous
country.”

Security threat

That is hardly the economic consensus. One of the most detailed studies on the topic found that
the Irish would face bills of up to €15.7 billion annually to fund Northern Ireland, more than
€3,200 per man, woman and child in the Republic.

Former Prime Minister John Bruton says it shouldn’t be taken for granted that the Republic would
vote for unity. He cites polls that show support drops once estimates of likely costs enter the
discussion.

He doubts, too, whether the Republic could cope with the security threat if the referendum
narrowly passed in the face of Protestant opposition. That community includes more than 10,000
members of outlawed “loyalist” paramilitary groups that once massacred Catholics, and
occasionally bombed the Republic, in attempts to outdo the IRA.

“My nightmare would be if we had a border poll, and it was carried in either direction, much like
Brexit was carried, by 51 to 49,” Bruton said. “If it was in the direction of a united Ireland, do you
think that would be accepted in East Belfast?”

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Naomi Long, the leader of Northern Ireland’s center-ground Alliance Party, told POLITICO that
before talk of a united Ireland can begin, the people of Northern Ireland must unite first, and
they’re nowhere near doing that.

Long, a native of overwhelmingly Protestant East Belfast, has seen the city’s nearly 100 “peace
lines” — barriers of brick, steel and barbed wire separating nationalist and unionist districts —
continue to grow during the most recent two decades of relative calm, a period when the rest of
Northern Ireland's capital has grown increasingly Catholic.

She says few in Dublin, London or Brussels understand how deeply segregated Belfast is and how
dangerous the loyalist paramilitary threat can become when confronted with change. She has
faced repeated threats because of her message of tolerance and compromise.

LINES OF WAR AND PEACE

Around one-third of barriers for which the construction date is known have been built after
the 1994 cease re.

Security barriers in Belfast by period of construction, number and share of total.

44 21 34

50% 100%
Pre 1994 cease re Post 1994 cease re Unknown

While construction of new defensive structures slowed down after 2000, more work has
been carried out on existing barriers, which have been extended or reinforced.

Security barriers built in Belfast from 1969 by decade*.

30

20

14
10

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0 2 18 12 12 7
1969 1970-79 1980-89 1990-99 2000-

Friday, April 23, 2021 Pre 1994 cease re Post 1994 cease re Editions POLITICO Live

REGISTER SIGN IN
STILL SPLIT
Defensive structures, colored in black, found in Belfast as of 2017. Areas of the city are
shaded according to each area's religious majority. Stronger green indicates a higher
proportion of Catholics; stronger orange indicates a higher proportion of Protestants or
other Christians**.

*The graph does not include 34 security barriers whose construction date was unknown. Data as of 2011.
**The count includes those who identi ed themselves as belonging to a religion or speci ed the religion they were
brought up in according to the 2011 Census.
SOURCE: Belfast Interface Project, 2011 Census

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“Can we really talk about uniting this island when we still can’t move from one place to another
freely, where we still have barriers between people living in neighboring streets? Unity has to be
about uniting peoples, not territories,” says Long, whose pro-EU party represents a growing
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Before his death last year, the veteran nationalist politician Seamus Mallon repeatedly warned
that a united Ireland referendum would have to be won by an overwhelming majority —
otherwise it would reproduce, in a mirror image, the injustice that a unionist-run Northern
Ireland long imposed on its nationalist minority.

“We would be doing to the unionists what was done to us,” Mallon told Channel 4 News in 2018.
“They would feel exactly the same as we felt for so long. And there would be the danger of
violence coming from that.”

The Good Friday accord gives the British government the power to call a unity referendum if it
believes a majority exists in Northern Ireland for this outcome. Former Irish Prime Minister
Bertie Ahern, who jointly oversaw the agreement, thinks 2028 – three decades after Good Friday
– could be the year it happens.

Privately, many Irish diplomats hope Ahern is wrong. They broadly share British exasperation
over Northern Ireland, where the two colliding national identities have mutated into a land of
never-ending arguments. “The longer this remains London’s problem, not ours, the better,” says
one.

Such views beg the question: Does London want rid of Northern Ireland more than Dublin wants
it?

“Britain, as has become so apparent since the beginning of the Brexit saga, sees Northern Ireland
as expendable,” said Diarmaid Ferriter, professor of modern history at University College Dublin.
“It really is the problem child that nobody wants.”

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