How a Brexit could trigger renewed calls for a United Ireland
Posted By: June 19, 2016
Peter Geoghegan.The Herald Scotland. Sunday, June 19, 2016
“A lot of people are fed up. It’ll be a new start for us,” David Reid leans across the glass counter of Ulster Souvenirs on the Shankill Road in Belfast. A portrait of Edward Carson, Northern Ireland’s founding father, hangs behind his head. Across the street, faded images of hooded loyalist gunmen look down from a gable end mural.
“People are fed up with the way the country is run, with being in the European Union,” says Reid. He is voting Leave, as are most of his friends, he says.
As if on cue, a trio of customers arrive. All have come to buy Northern Ireland football jerseys for the European championships. How will they be voting on Thursday, I ask?
“Leave,” Greg Benson bellows, with a broad smile. The “Now That’s What I Call Loyalist Music” CDs and the Apprentice Boys flags behind the counter almost shake with the reverberations.
“You can’t say too much or you’re a racist, but immigration is the big thing. It’s having a massive affect on our health system,” says Benson. There are few non-white faces on the Shankill Road – an area badly affected by the Troubles – but unemployment is well above the Northern Irish average and the streets still bear the scars of three decades of violence.
In 1975, Northern Ireland was the most Eurosceptic part of the UK. This time around polls suggest Northern Irish voters are more pro-EU – but could still vote to leave. Such a move could have major political and economic ramifications, and even trigger renewed calls for a united Ireland.
“If we left the European Union we would find it very difficult not to start a conversation about how we would be better off in a united Ireland with access to a market of 500 million rather than part of an isolated United Kingdom,” Colum Eastwood, leader of the nationalist Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), told the Sunday Herald.
Northern Ireland has clearly benefited from billions in European funding, and the EU played a key role in the peace process. Politicians, however, are divided on the referendum. Theresa Villiers, the UK government’s Northern Ireland secretary, is a Brexit supporter, as are the Democratic Unionists, who topped the poll in last month’s devolved elections. All other major parties advocate a Remain vote.
In west Belfast, on the other side of 15-foot-high corrugated iron ‘peaceline’ that separates the loyalist Shankill from the republican Falls, attitudes towards the European Union are more ambivalent. “I’m not voting but if I was, I’d vote to stay In, it’s better for business,” says Sean Morgan, who runs a souvenir shop called Fenians.
The Fenians were 19th century Irish republicans, committed to a United Ireland. Celtic jerseys, replica guns and copies of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic adorn the walls. There are rolls of union flag toilet paper at £2.50 a pop. “You’ll never never believe how many of those we sell,” Morgan laughs.
Morgan is concerned about the prospect of a hard border being established between Northern Ireland and the Irish republic if the UK does vote to leave the EU. “If down south stays in and we leave, we’ll have Brits at the border and we’ll have chaos at the border,” he says. “I can’t see any other way if we leave than to put up the border, which will be chaos.”
People have been able to move with ease across both jurisdictions since the 1920s, due to an informal arrangement known as the Common Travel Area (CTA). But both David Cameron and and Irish premier Enda Kenny have raised the prospect of border controls if Britain left the EU.
Former Police Service of Northern Ireland chief constable, Hugh Orde, has said that the re-imposition of the border could give succour to dissident republicans opposed to the peace process. DUP East Antrim MP Sammy Wilson disagrees.
“The thing you can always rely on Hugh Orde to do is to take the establishment line. When he was chief constable he always did, and now he’s doing the same,” Wilson says.
“I don’t think border controls are necessary or feasible. We had 40 years of trouble and we were told by the British and Irish governments that closing the border was not possible. If it was not possible in the face of a terrorist campaign, how can it be possible now?”
Warnings that Brexit could destabilise the peace process are not far fetched, however, says Duncan Morrow.
“There is a fine thread that holds Northern Ireland together and it could unravel,” says Morrow, who is director of community engagement at the University of Ulster and the head of the Scottish Government’s advisory group on tackling sectarianism.
“This is probably the most important election we have ever faced.”
There are economic issues at play, too. Northern Ireland is more reliant on agriculture than other parts of the UK. Direct EU payments represent 87 per cent of annual income on Northern Ireland’s almost 25,000 farms.
Agriculture Minister Michelle O’Neill has said that a vote to leave the would be “a huge gamble”. Sammy Wilson disagrees. “Many small famers will be voting to leave,” he says.
Turnout on Thursday could be key. Apathy has grown in the almost two decades since the Good Friday Agreement was signed. Just 55 per cent of the electorate voted in last month’s Stormont elections and there is a definite sense of voter fatigue on the streets of Belfast.
Northern Ireland is often depicted as ‘a place apart’ in British politics, where the constitution – or rather tribal divisions over the constitution – trump all else. But when it comes to Brexit, it seems Northern Ireland is not that different from the rest of the UK.
“People are conditioned to vote orange or green,” says Jonny Byrne, lecturer in politics at the University of Ulster. “But the issues in this referendum aren’t black and white, they are more complicated than that.”
“A lot of people are fed up. It’ll be a new start for us,” David Reid leans across the glass counter of Ulster Souvenirs on the Shankill Road in Belfast. A portrait of Edward Carson, Northern Ireland’s founding father, hangs behind his head. Across the street, faded images of hooded loyalist gunmen look down from a gable end mural.
“People are fed up with the way the country is run, with being in the European Union,” says Reid. He is voting Leave, as are most of his friends, he says.
As if on cue, a trio of customers arrive. All have come to buy Northern Ireland football jerseys for the European championships. How will they be voting on Thursday, I ask?
“Leave,” Greg Benson bellows, with a broad smile. The “Now That’s What I Call Loyalist Music” CDs and the Apprentice Boys flags behind the counter almost shake with the reverberations.
“You can’t say too much or you’re a racist, but immigration is the big thing. It’s having a massive affect on our health system,” says Benson. There are few non-white faces on the Shankill Road – an area badly affected by the Troubles – but unemployment is well above the Northern Irish average and the streets still bear the scars of three decades of violence.
In 1975, Northern Ireland was the most Eurosceptic part of the UK. This time around polls suggest Northern Irish voters are more pro-EU – but could still vote to leave. Such a move could have major political and economic ramifications, and even trigger renewed calls for a united Ireland.
“If we left the European Union we would find it very difficult not to start a conversation about how we would be better off in a united Ireland with access to a market of 500 million rather than part of an isolated United Kingdom,” Colum Eastwood, leader of the nationalist Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), told the Sunday Herald.
Northern Ireland has clearly benefited from billions in European funding, and the EU played a key role in the peace process. Politicians, however, are divided on the referendum. Theresa Villiers, the UK government’s Northern Ireland secretary, is a Brexit supporter, as are the Democratic Unionists, who topped the poll in last month’s devolved elections. All other major parties advocate a Remain vote.
In west Belfast, on the other side of 15-foot-high corrugated iron ‘peaceline’ that separates the loyalist Shankill from the republican Falls, attitudes towards the European Union are more ambivalent. “I’m not voting but if I was, I’d vote to stay In, it’s better for business,” says Sean Morgan, who runs a souvenir shop called Fenians.
The Fenians were 19th century Irish republicans, committed to a United Ireland. Celtic jerseys, replica guns and copies of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic adorn the walls. There are rolls of union flag toilet paper at £2.50 a pop. “You’ll never never believe how many of those we sell,” Morgan laughs.
Morgan is concerned about the prospect of a hard border being established between Northern Ireland and the Irish republic if the UK does vote to leave the EU. “If down south stays in and we leave, we’ll have Brits at the border and we’ll have chaos at the border,” he says. “I can’t see any other way if we leave than to put up the border, which will be chaos.”
People have been able to move with ease across both jurisdictions since the 1920s, due to an informal arrangement known as the Common Travel Area (CTA). But both David Cameron and and Irish premier Enda Kenny have raised the prospect of border controls if Britain left the EU.
Former Police Service of Northern Ireland chief constable, Hugh Orde, has said that the re-imposition of the border could give succour to dissident republicans opposed to the peace process. DUP East Antrim MP Sammy Wilson disagrees.
“The thing you can always rely on Hugh Orde to do is to take the establishment line. When he was chief constable he always did, and now he’s doing the same,” Wilson says.
“I don’t think border controls are necessary or feasible. We had 40 years of trouble and we were told by the British and Irish governments that closing the border was not possible. If it was not possible in the face of a terrorist campaign, how can it be possible now?”
Warnings that Brexit could destabilise the peace process are not far fetched, however, says Duncan Morrow.
“There is a fine thread that holds Northern Ireland together and it could unravel,” says Morrow, who is director of community engagement at the University of Ulster and the head of the Scottish Government’s advisory group on tackling sectarianism.
“This is probably the most important election we have ever faced.”
There are economic issues at play, too. Northern Ireland is more reliant on agriculture than other parts of the UK. Direct EU payments represent 87 per cent of annual income on Northern Ireland’s almost 25,000 farms.
Agriculture Minister Michelle O’Neill has said that a vote to leave the would be “a huge gamble”. Sammy Wilson disagrees. “Many small famers will be voting to leave,” he says.
Turnout on Thursday could be key. Apathy has grown in the almost two decades since the Good Friday Agreement was signed. Just 55 per cent of the electorate voted in last month’s Stormont elections and there is a definite sense of voter fatigue on the streets of Belfast.
Northern Ireland is often depicted as ‘a place apart’ in British politics, where the constitution – or rather tribal divisions over the constitution – trump all else. But when it comes to Brexit, it seems Northern Ireland is not that different from the rest of the UK.
“People are conditioned to vote orange or green,” says Jonny Byrne, lecturer in politics at the University of Ulster. “But the issues in this referendum aren’t black and white, they are more complicated than that.”
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