Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Ramadan 17, 1445 H
broken clouds
weather
OMAN
23°C / 23°C
EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

Northern Ireland: A fragile peace tested by Brexit

minus
plus

Julien Lagache -


Two decades after the Good Friday Agreement ended the conflict in Northern Ireland, the peace process remains fragile and Brexit is provoking concerns over its durability. The accord, signed on April 10, 1998, by the British and Irish governments and local political parties, ended 30 years of unrest that had left more than 3,500 dead.


It came four years after the Irish Republican Army (IRA), which had waged a deadly campaign against London’s rule on the island, declared a ceasefire.


“I have been a member of the Labour Party for 54 years and a parliamentarian for 32 years and nothing in my life has compared with 5.30 pm on Good Friday, April 10, 1998,” Paul Murphy, a British Foreign Office minister for Northern Ireland at the time, told reporters as the anniversary approached.


Since then, violence by the IRA and unionist paramilitary groups fighting for continued British rule of the province has receded.


But communities continue to be divided along sectarian lines and political tensions remain.


Northern Ireland has been without an executive for 15 months after a power-sharing administration between the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and nationalist party Sinn Fein collapsed.


“A lot of people are wondering really how much has Northern Ireland changed in 20 years if the communities are so divided,” Siobhan Fenton, author of the forthcoming book The Good Friday Agreement, said.


Former Ulster Unionist Party leader Mike Nesbitt believes power-sharing in Belfast has been successful for “only one year” — when Ian Paisley, of the DUP, and one-time IRA commander Martin McGuinness, of Sinn Fein, ruled together through 2007.


Giada Lagana, a political science academic at the National University of Ireland Galway, said the deal was an “ingenious compromise where everything is subject to interpretation”.


Its interpretive nature has led to recurring disagreements over certain key provisions.


Britain’s domestic politics has complicated the picture.


Prime Minister Theresa May’s minority Government remains in power only with the support of 10 Westminster lawmakers with the fervently pro-Brexit DUP, sparking fears over their influence.


The impact of Britain’s impending departure from the European Union on Northern Ireland has many worried, particularly because of the prospect of the return of a physical border with the Republic of Ireland, an EU member.


New Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald said in February Brexit was “not compatible” with the agreement.


Brexit will also result in the loss of a key channel for dialogue among peace process stakeholders, according to Lagana. — AFP


SHARE ARTICLE
arrow up
home icon