The latest news from Ulster, on 29th July, have been a stark reminder of the possible impact of the return of customs checks, while in Belfast clashes between communities are occurring even about flags hoisted in neighborhoods: loyalist protestant militants celebrated, near Annadale Flats, the fallen men of the UDA (the Ulster Defence Association, an armed organization that caused the death of many Catholics in the Nineties) placing a memorial plate along with a flag created to commemorate the Battle of the Somme. A Republican march scheduled on August 7th won’t be allowed to transit in some areas of the City center (last year clashes with loyalist groups erupted along its route).
In occasion of a meeting in London a few days ago, on July 26th, the Premier of the Republic of Ireland, Enda Kenny, stressed, along with Theresa May, the will to avoid the reintroduction of an ‘hard border’ in Ireland: only ten days earlier, the German deputy Jens Zimmermann, interviewed by the Sunday Times on July 17th (with regard to his work in a parliamentary group Germany-United Kingdom) had invited the Irish institutions to clarify to the EU partners that the recent conflict is still smoldering, as demonstrated on July 12th by the political tension in the day of the Twelfth, the traditional pro-British loyalist parade in Belfast (in memory of the victory of the protestant William of Orange over James II at the battle of the Boyne in 1690, during the war of succession).
The mere argument of Ireland’s economic ties with its neighbour won’t persuade the EU to make life easy for the United Kingdom and awareness of the Northern Irish situation is not common outside of the islands. It seems that until June 23rd the Irish government has relied too much on a likely referendum victory for the ‘Remain’ side and addressed the European partners on the topic too late. The frontier has lost part of its importance after the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985 and the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, but the land borders would now become boundaries between the EU and a third country (the UK), not even the Protestant Unionists would be happy in this scenario, but the decision does not depend on them nor on the Catholic Republicans, only EU and UK will have the last word: the social situation in Belfast is difficult in many urban areas of both communities and UK and EU spending cuts could impinge in an economy reliant on public sector.
The greatest concern is a political one, the whole Peace Process can be described as an European miracle: on November 15th, 1985, the then leaders of the Republic of Ireland and of United Kingdom, Garreth FitzGerald and Margaret Thatcher, signed the Anglo-Irish Agreement. London accorded to the Republic an advisory role in Northern Ireland’s affairs and Dublin recognized that a future reunification of the island could have been achieved only securing a majority within the province. Since the Good Friday Agreement (10th April 1998) cooperation among political forces in the government of Ulster progressed and there was a growing awareness, on the part of the two neighbouring states and of the two major communities in the autonomous province (and of irreducible forces that had been fighting each other since decades) that they were not anymore closed in the barricade of a secular history, but together in a broader space, working along other countries willing to provide help.
Despite several setbacks, unexpected results have been achieved along this path, such as the signing by leaders and groups that initially had been opposed to the agreements, sometimes whereby armed struggle. An ‘hard border’ would instead offer to dissident republicans the argument to declare that in the summer of 2005 Sinn Féin decommissioned its weapons without obtaining any change with regard to the separation of the province from the rest of the island, while the only alternative (passports controls between the island of Ireland and the United Kingdom without Northern Ireland) would become the ground on which hard-line loyalists would claim that the peace agreements have set in motion a ‘surrender’ on the part of London. Cuts in UK and EU funding would dry up businesses and sports and associative projects which in recent years have diluted the identitarian bonds that pit the two communities one against the other in the poor suburbs of Belfast.
While Arlene Foster (Democratic Unionist Party), Premier in Northern Ireland, rejects Enda Kenny’s proposals for an all-Ireland Forum and while Sinn Féin (Republican) proposes a referendum for the Irish reunification (knowing that today it would not reach a majority, but encouraged by the 56 percent vote against Brexit in Ulster, including the vote cast by many Protestants) also other political parties in the province are leading initiatives: the leaders of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (Catholics), Colum Eastwood, and of the Alliance Party (formed by both Catholics and Protestants), David Ford, are asking Theresa May and the Secretary for Northern Ireland, James Brokenshire, that the peace agreements are protected before the UK leave the EU. The signatories of the document have announced that if the Good Friday Agreement is not legally protected, they will launch an appeal against the triggering of Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, which regulates withdrawing from the European Union.
