Last month Grassroots for Europe (GfE) hosted an open webinar featuring young Irish pro-Europeans and an academic expert on UK-Irish relations. They discussed many issues arising from Brexit and how problems might be resolved between Northern Ireland, the Republic, the UK and the European Union.
Chairing the discussion was Jane Morrice, honorary president of the European Movement Northern Ireland, former deputy speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly, and former head of the European Commission Office in Northern Ireland. Attendees included representatives from organisations that campaign for the UK to rejoin the EU, and for democratic and human rights, including European Movement UK and GfE branches and affiliates from around the UK.
Morrice described the hugely important role played by the EU in the peace process:
“I was head of the EC office in Belfast when Jacques Delors came for his first visit, which led to the initiation of the first EU PEACE programme… The peace we achieved after Good Friday was dropping slow, to quote Yeats’ famous poem, but we were moving in the right direction. The single market all but erased our border.
“The coming together of British and Irish leaders and politicians and grassroots groups on a cross-border and cross-community basis, started new trust between former enemies, and it was a time of so much hope and expectation.”
But then Brexit came along, and everything changed:
“After a long struggle we got the protocol, and now we’ve got a healthy and viable Rejoin movement. And, with the ever-growing engagement of young people, I truly believe that the UK will rejoin the EU.”
Threat to border movement
Tommy Monahan is head of finance and administration for the Young European Movement UK (YEM UK) and the international officer for Alliance Youth (Northern Ireland). He expresses deep concern about the customs border. A hard border is impossible under the Good Friday agreement, so it had to be drawn in the Irish Sea, threatening the integrity of the UK, a major issue for Unionists. There has been significant progress on this with the Windsor framework, but such issues do cause real cultural divides, as we saw with the collapse of Stormont in recent years.
Brexit has also raised concerns around human rights and the common travel area, affecting the movement of tourists, asylum seekers and even people who commute every day across the border. This freedom of movement is an integral part of social cohesion and prosperity in Northern Ireland, and is threatened by new legislation such as the Nationality and Borders Act 2022.
Meanwhile, Tommy notes that Northern Ireland has lost millions in EU funding, including its share of the annual £3.5bn the UK received under the common agricultural policy.
Disregard for human rights
Leah Rea is head of policy and political engagement for YEM UK, and formerly vice president of the Young European Socialists and international secretary for the Social Democratic and Labout Party in Northern Ireland. Her first experience of grassroots activism was with the 2016 campaign to keep Northern Ireland and the UK in the EU. She was dismayed then by UK politicians’ and campaigners’ total failure to consider Northern Ireland or the impact of Brexit on its citizens.
The Good Friday agreement states that there must be no diminution of human rights and equality standards in Northern Ireland, but the Brexit negotiations did not take this into account. This disregard continues – courts in Northern Ireland recently ruled that part of the 2023 Illegal Migration Act violates both the European Convention on Human Rights and the Windsor agreement.
Rea said she welcomed the new Labour government’s desire for a reset of relations with the EU, but argues that anyone who truly cares about our relationship with Europe needs to consider all parts of the UK, including Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and how different historic ties might shape any such changes.
View from the south
Robert O’Donnell is president of Young European Federalists Ireland (JEF Ireland), a pan-European network that campaigns for a closer and a more democratic EU. He feels the Irish are fortunate in that they can still live and work in the UK, thanks to the common travel area and the Good Friday agreement. But, importantly, Ireland has lost its natural ally on the European Council and other institutions, and Brexit’s impact on import/export has hit the Irish agriculture sector badly.
Addressing how pro-EU campaigners can better convince people that the UK should rejoin the EU, he argues that progressive politicians and campaigners tend to be idealistic, and that ultimately people vote with their wallets. So we need to talk less about rejoining and more about the practicality of trade deals, until eventually the conversation changes to, “Well, if we’re already taking these rules, why can’t we be there to make them?”
Damaging divide
Sorcha Ní Chonghaileis apolicy officer in European Liberal Youth (LYMEC) and language officer and vice president of JEF Ireland. She believes the EU offered a unique space for a shared community and identity outside the binaries of being Irish, British, both or none, so that Brexit has resulted in a great loss.
Under the Good Friday agreement nobody should be forced to choose an identity, but Northern Irish citizens who want to work in the EU must now apply for an Irish passport, even if they identify as British. Northern Ireland now has been left with one foot in the UK and one in the EU. If its citizens are to have representation and offices based in the EU, she argues they should be able to work there without being forced to take on an identity they don’t necessarily agree with.
Sorcha says she will never take for granted again the harmony and sense of peace she felt growing up. She is a teacher in a European school, and has seen for herself the damage Brexit has caused in education, in particular. The Irish government currently funds Northern Irish students’ participation in Erasmus+, but there is no guarantee this funding will continue.
UK-Irish relations
Barry Colfer is director of research at Dublin’s Institute of International and European Affairs and teaches at the University of Cambridge. He believes that no EU country has felt the departure of the UK more keenly than Ireland and UK-Irish relations have been sorely tested and undermined since 2016.
The election of a new UK government offers some grounds for optimism and the bonhomie on display at Keir Starmer’s recent encounter with Taoiseach Simon Harris is to be welcomed. But he identifies three clear risks and challenges that will shape Irish-UK relations:
- The Northern Ireland Assembly has reconvened again after its latest hiatus, but a vote on the post-Brexit trade arrangements under the Windsor framework consent mechanism is due before the end of 2024, and there is a real risk of instability when that happens.
- British and European citizens working side by side in Brussels and elsewhere built up a shared vocabulary, interests, friendships and trust. There is still no robust replacement for these ties between civil servants, state agencies and politicians.
- Finally, a general election is due in the Republic before March, most probably in November. The key issues are domestic, but immigration has entered the political discourse for the first time, rendering the political situation in Ireland less predictable.
To conclude, he argued that if the UK is ever to rejoin the EU, there must be genuinely close cooperation between the UK and the member states, especially Ireland, given Northern Ireland’s unique situation in the single market.
Working together
The panellists shared their visions and experiences of collaborative relationships between young European activist groups north and south of the border, and in the UK and EU. They agreed on the need to get out of their own bubbles more, and JEF Ireland and YEM UK have recently signed a twinning agreement, organising events with speakers from the nationalist and unionist communities.
O’Donnell argues that organisations both in mainland UK and the Republic need to learn more about the North and engage more actively with groups there. He is also international secretary of the Labour Party in the Republic, and involved in joint activities with the British Labour Party and with the SDLP in the North.
Rea talked about the shared Ireland forum run by the Taoiseach’s office, which works extensively with young people on both sides of the Irish border to gather their views and experiences on a number of issues. She would like to see that extended to the rest of the UK.
Wish list for UK-Irish future
The panellists addressed what they would most like to see from Starmer’s ‘reset’, agreeing that repealing the Legacy Act would be the quickest way to regain trust between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK (a Northern Irish court has since ruled on an appeal against the Act and the government is considering its response). A Labour government commitment to implement the long-promised bill of rights for Northern Ireland, with the Irish government as co-guarantor, would also represent a real demonstration of engagement across the Irish Sea.
Discussing the respective positions of Ireland’s political parties, O’Donnell pointed out that Sinn Féin in the Republic has traditionally been Eurosceptic, but since Brexit its stance has become, as Barry Colfer puts it, more ‘Euro-realist’ – there being few votes in Ireland for anti-EU parties.
For the North, Tommy Monahan observes that nationalist parties tend to be pro-EU while unionist parties, especially the Democratic Unionist Party, are anti, taking their lead from the Tories. The centrist Alliance Party are pragmatic pro-Europeans, very aware of the costs of leaving the EU and the subsequent instability.
Rea argues that Sinn Féin in the North uses Brexit to push its own agenda regarding Irish unity, while she holds to the belief that the constitutional future of the island of Ireland and its relationship with Europe are separate issues and should not be conflated.
Reform of the Assembly
Finally, the speakers all welcomed the return of the Stormont government, but felt the Assembly’s constant, repeated suspensions suggest that it urgently needs reform. It has a poor record of producing legislation or passing budgets, and individual parties are able to hold it to ransom. Public services in Northern Ireland are gravely suffering as a result. Sorcha hopes the new Labour government will push this reform, but doubts it will be one of Starmer’s immediate priorities.
In her closing remarks, Morrice emphasised the importance of continued north-south and east-west dialogue. It was refreshing to hear from young people from both Northern Ireland and the Republic, and from a range of political backgrounds, with shared European values and a desire to bring about a better future for Ireland, Northern Ireland, UK and the EU.
“I’ve said it many times. I’m going to say it again. Brexit is not a divorce. It’s a trial separation, allowing the UK and EU to settle their long-standing differences and get back together for the sake of the children.”
Jane Morrice
