THE EVOLUTION OF AN EARTHQUAKE
The decision by the people of Britain in the 2016 referendum to leave the EU unleashed a wave of anger and resentment in the North among the voters who had chosen to remain. An estimated 40 per cent of unionists and 85 per cent of nationalists were among those who voted to remain (The Conversation, April 2017). These included many engaged in farming and agriculture-related industries, which for decades have relied heavily on EU transfers from the Common Agricultural Programme.
When the assembly and executive collapsed the following year, in early March 2017, following the decision by Sinn Féin (SF) to pull out of the power-sharing arrangements, disaffection among nationalists escalated. Their ability to influence political decision making in the North diminished and their future outside the EU was being determined exclusively by the British government and the Westminster parliament.
The collapse of the institutions came amid recriminations over the involvement of senior Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) ministers in a scandal surrounding huge payments to its supporters from a Renewable Heating Incentive (RHI) scheme introduced by the British government. This followed an earlier controversy over the sale of properties in the North controlled by the National Asset Management Agency, an Irish government body set up to deal with the bad debts of the main banks in the South following the financial crash of 2008/09. The controversy implicated and politically damaged DUP leader and First Minister Peter Robinson, as well as some of his party colleagues in the NI Executive, and led to criminal charges against other individuals with close links to the organisation.
Nationalist and republican concerns were exacerbated when the DUP entered into a confidence and supply agreement with the British government and Conservative Party leader Theresa May, a few months after the collapse of the Stormont institutions, deepening a suspicion that the largest unionist party had little or no interest in restoring the devolved administration. Given that they were holding the balance of power at Westminster, and their open support for a hard Brexit, the DUP MPs were under no urgency to continue sharing power with SF and other parties in the North.
In the absence of political institutions, and amid growing fears about the impact of a no-deal or hard Brexit on the North, fresh voices emerged from within the nationalist and republican community about their lack of political representation and the uncertain future facing them and their children as Irish citizens. As a reflection of these concerns, Ireland’s Future (IF), a non-party initiative of civic nationalists, emerged with an open letter sent by email to Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, on 8 December 2017 and published in the Irish News three days later. The letter was signed by almost 200 people, including prominent members of the business, academic, legal, arts and sporting communities across the North. It described the political pact between the DUP and the Conservative Party as ‘a grave threat to political progress’. It noted the ‘concerted undermining of the political institutions’ and said the political crisis in the North was due to the failure of both governments to defend the Good Friday, Stormont House and St Andrews agreements made over the previous two decades:
The result has been a denial and refusal of equality, rights and respect towards the section of the community to which we belong, as well as everyone living here. The impending reality of Brexit now threatens to reinforce partition on this island and revisit a sense of abandonment as experienced by our parents and grandparents. The fact that a majority of voters in the north of Ireland voted to remain within the EU must not be ignored.
On the day the letter was delivered, 8 December, Varadkar, made an official statement with a commitment to the nationalist people in the North that their interests were being protected during the negotiations with Britain on its departure from the EU: ‘Your birth right as Irish citizens, and therefore as EU citizens, will be protected. There will be no hard border on our island. You will never again be left behind by an Irish government.’ Just weeks earlier, on 23 November, Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs, Simon Coveney, told the Oireachtas Committee on the Good Friday Agreement, that he ‘would like to see a united Ireland in my lifetime, and, if possible, in my political lifetime’.
Both Irish government leaders were responding to the outbreak of anger among nationalists in the North at the absence of political representation since the collapse of the institutions, the increasing prospect of a no-deal Brexit, which could see the reintroduction of a hard border in Ireland, and the influence of the DUP at Westminster where it held the balance of power.
In return for the support of the DUP’s 10 MPs, the May administration, it appeared, was prepared to jettison its responsibilities to advance significant provisions in the GFA in relation to human rights and legacy issues arising from the conflict, and on the promise of Irish language legislation and other commitments the British government had made since 1998.
After lengthy negotiations brokered by Coveney and Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Karen Bradley, a package of proposals that could have restored the power-sharing executive was rejected at the eleventh hour by DUP leader Arlene Foster in early February 2018. She rejected claims from SF that an agreement had been reached on contentious issues such as an Irish language act, marriage equality and a proposed bill of rights for NI, but it was widely suspected that the plug has been pulled on a deal at the insistence of the DUP MPs at Westminster.
The failure of this latest attempt to restore the institutions re-energised the campaign by IF, which set about widening its appeal across the nationalist and wider non-unionist community and refining its message. It found a growing audience, including among ‘soft unionists’ and people of no affiliation to either of the main political traditions. Many of these had voted against Brexit in 2016 and were deeply concerned about the direction the process of withdrawal from the EU was taking and its longer-term implications for their families and communities. IF reflected these concerns and also tapped into a deepening anxiety across the communities arising from the nature of the Brexit deal Theresa May was promoting and her stated intention to remove protections provided to Irish citizens in the North through the GFA and the ECHR.
Niall Murphy, a founding member of the group and a solicitor with Belfast firm KRW Law, represented clients seeking redress for suffering they endured at the hands of the British state, its army and police during the years of conflict. Among these were victims of collusion between the security forces and loyalist paramilitaries, including those killed and injured by an Ulster Defence Association (UDA) gang at Sean Graham bookmakers shop on the Ormeau Road, in Belfast in 1992, and those shot dead in an Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) attack on O’Toole’s pub in Loughinisland, County Down, in 1994. As a director of the board of the human rights group Relatives for Justice, Murphy was also concerned by the failure of the British government to address the legacy of official state collusion with loyalist paramilitaries and unresolved and illegal killings by British security forces. As a solicitor, he was particularly angered by the prime minister’s proposals to remove the protections and legal recourse available to his clients, including a number from the loyalist community, from the ECHR.
The next major initiative of the embryonic movement was planned to coincide with May’s attempt to push through her best attempt at a Withdrawal Agreement in the Westminster parliament in Autumn 2018. IF decided to convene a major gathering of civic nationalism, along with as many unionists and those of other political persuasions as were willing to attend, to demonstrate their opposition to May’s proposals and the continued absence of political representation within the North since the collapse of the power-sharing institutions. In response to Coveney’s and Varadkar’s statements of support for nationalists in the North, Murphy and the small group of activists that led the IF initiative issued an invitation to Coveney to open, and to Varadkar to close the event: a conference to be held in Belfast’s Waterfront Hall in October 2018. In the run up to the conference, discussions were held in Belfast with two officials of the Department of Foreign Affairs, Eamon Molloy and Fergal Mythen, who passed on the request to their colleagues in Dublin.
In reply, Coveney and his senior department officials requested that the conference be postponed given the sensitivity of the Brexit discussions between the British government and the EU and their concern that such an event attended by senior politicians, including the Taoiseach and Tánaiste, from Dublin would upset unionists. The Irish government officials argued that the unionists were already complaining about the ‘backstop’ envisaged in the deal negotiated by May, which would keep the North within the EU customs and trade area following Brexit. The compromise was designed to maintain a frictionless border in Ireland until alternative customs and other trading arrangements could be agreed in a final ‘divorce settlement’ and following a two-year transition period.
The Withdrawal Agreement and the Irish backstop would see the UK staying in a customs union with the EU while the North would also remain aligned with the EU single market for the purposes of certain rules and regulations. The DUP members at Westminster joined in the chorus of Brexiteers denouncing the perceived surrender of sovereignty by the prime minister marking the beginning of the end of the unhappy relationship between the party’s MPs and Theresa May. On the day she travelled to Brussels to close the deal in late November 2018, May’s main rival in the party, Boris Johnson, went to Belfast where he told cheering delegates at the DUP party conference that ‘no British government could or should’ agree to a border in the Irish Sea. ‘If you read the Withdrawal Agreement,’ Johnson said, ‘you can see that we are witnessing the birth of a new country called UK(NI) or Ukni. Ukni is no longer exclusively ruled by London or Stormont. Ukni is in large part to be ruled by Brussels.’ He warned that the backstop would separate Northern Ireland from the UK and repeated an earlier suggestion he had made for a bridge to be built between Scotland and Northern Ireland. ‘We need to junk the backstop,’ he told the receptive audience of DUP members.
The IF team acceded to Coveney’s request to postpone the conference and instead published a second letter in the Irish News to the Taoiseach, reminding him of the commitment he had made to nationalists in the North in December 2017. They warned, again, of the dangers posed by a hard deal Brexit and of the resulting suppression of rights available to Irish citizens north of the border:
The political institutions remain in suspension as political unionism continues to deny respect for our Irish identity and language, marriage equality, access to justice for legacy issues. As you know these rights are now taken for granted by citizens in other parts of these islands. The British Conservative government has rendered itself unable to effect any progress on these rights issues due to its dependence on the DUP. Brexit threatens to deepen the rights crisis and there is a real danger of serious erosion of current guarantees … there is a very real potential that partition could be reinforced, and our country and our people further divided. This is a source of grave concern to all of us.
What was as significant as the content of the letter was the range and profile of the signatories, representing a large swathe of opinion across all sections of nationalism in the North and further afield. Over a thousand people, spanning the legal, academic, business, cultural and sporting voices across the nationalist community signed it, including actor Adrian Dunbar, Oscar-winning film director Jim Sheridan, Derry footballer James McClean, and an array of business leaders, lawyers, university professors, school principals, healthcare and other professionals. Among the sports stars were three Olympic medal holders and 30 senior GAA all-Ireland winners, while two other signatories also held Oscars and one had climbed Mount Everest. The names, published in the Irish News three days after the letter had been sent to the Taoiseach, had been collected through the network which the campaign was slowly, but organically, growing from their connections across civic society. According to Niall Murphy, after the letter’s publication, IF was inundated with people asking why they had not been invited to sign up.
Two months later, on 26 January 2019, more than two thousand people, including many of those who had signed their names to the letter, gathered in the Waterfront Hall in the Belfast docks for the launch of IF. Representatives of the main nationalist political parties across the island addressed the enthusiastic audience along with other prominent civic society speakers. The Irish government was represented by agriculture minister and Donegal native, Joe McHugh, who was welcomed by the organisers but was several notches below their preferred choice in the pecking order of cabinet members. Fianna Fáil deputy leader Dara Calleary attended, while SF President Mary Lou McDonald and Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) leader Colum Eastwood, also addressed the huge crowd.
McDonald called on the Irish government to begin planning for reunification and said it was ‘irresponsible and arrogant’ of it to dismiss any prospect of a unity referendum. She also said that the unionist community would have a home in a united Ireland: ‘The Protestant, loyalist and unionist community are part of the fabric and diversity of our nation, and they must be part of [the] discussion in shaping … and be partners in building a new Ireland – our shared and often troubled history can be reconciled.’
Eastwood told the packed hall that, while the time was not right for a border poll, unionists had nothing to fear from a conversation about Irish unity: ‘My appeal to unionism is this. You need to convince us of your vision for the future and we’ll try to convince you of ours, and then in time let the people decide’ (Irish News, 28 January 2019).
The Waterfront event was a significant and historic moment in its successful assembly of the main strands of Irish nationalist and republican opinion across the island, even if the leaders of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil chose not to attend. It was also the springboard for what was becoming an unstoppable campaign for a unity referendum and a debate on the future of a new Ireland.
IF followed it up with a successful meeting in Newry four months later, which brought together legal opinion and human rights campaigners to deepen the discussion and bring it to an audience in the border counties. High Court judge Richard Humphreys, who examined the implications of the Brexit vote for the GFA in his 2018 book, Beyond the Border, was among the speakers. Human rights lawyer Professor Colin Harvey of Queen’s University Belfast (QUB), and an authority on constitutional change, also addressed the meeting.
The widening discussion, or ‘the evolution of an earthquake’ as Niall Murphy described the momentum for a unity referendum building among nationalist and others across the island on IF’s website, encouraged the loose network involved in IF to formalise its structures, register as a company and to build a wider, national campaign. Their development coincided with the inevitable collapse of the May administration as the prime minister’s efforts to advance her Withdrawal Agreement foundered on the rocks of her own party’s hard Brexit enthusiasts and the intransigence of her former unionist allies at Westminster.
Following several unsuccessful attempts to get her bill through parliament, May announced her decision to resign in May 2019, less than two years into her premiership. She was replaced by Johnson, the arch-Brexiteer who promised to re-negotiate the Withdrawal Agreement, including the offensive backstop, much to the delight of the DUP.
The former chief whip, Julian Smith, was appointed as the new secretary of state for Northern Ireland and set about the, somewhat conflicting, tasks of restoring the devolved institutions while maintaining relations with the DUP, whose 10 MPs were still keeping the minority Tory government in power.
During his first meetings as prime minister with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron, Johnson learned that, while prepared to listen to alternative proposals to the NI backstop, they had no intention of resiling from the EU position that there would be no return to a hard border in Ireland. ‘The key elements of the Withdrawal Agreement and the Irish backstop are not just technical constraints or legal quibbling. They are genuine, indispensable guarantees to preserve stability in Ireland and the integrity of the single market, which is the basis of the EU,’ Macron said after his meeting with Johnson at the Élysée Palace in Paris on 22 August 2019.
At a briefing with the Presidential Press Association before he met the British prime minister, Macron warned that the reinstatement of a hard border would threaten the hard-won peace in Ireland: ‘There are still families whose children, brothers and sisters died in this conflict,’ he said. ‘To think of reviving that, because it suits us, would be irresponsible. I consider that Irish peace is European peace. We must not allow it to be threatened by a political and institutional crisis in Britain.’ When asked by Lara Marlowe of the Irish Times at the briefing whether reunification and the integration of the entire island of Ireland into the EU would perhaps resolve the issue, the French president replied that it ‘would solve all the problems, but it is not up to France’.
The solid support for the Irish government position by the most powerful EU leaders left Johnson more isolated as he ploughed on with his efforts to alter the Withdrawal Agreement and ensure Britain’s scheduled departure from the EU by the end of October 2019. As reported by Pat Leahy in the Irish Times, when Johnson met Varadkar in Dublin in early September, the British prime minister insisted that he wanted a deal with the EU and hoped to find a way to resolve the backstop issue:
I want to get a deal. Like you, I’ve looked carefully at no-deal, I’ve assessed its consequences both for our country and yours. And yes, of course, we could do it, the UK could certainly get through it, but be in no doubt that outcome would be a failure of statecraft for which we would all be responsible. So for the sake of business, for farmers, and millions of ordinary people who are counting on us to use our imagination and creativity to get this done, I want you to know I would overwhelmingly prefer to find an agreement.
For his part, Varadkar stressed that:
The people of this island, North and South, need to know that their livelihoods, their security and their sense of identity will not be put at risk as a consequence of a hard Brexit. The stakes are high. Avoiding the return of a hard border on this island and protecting our place in the single market are the Irish government’s priorities in all circumstances. We must protect peace on the island and the burgeoning success of the all-island economy. This is why the backstop continues to be a critical component of the Withdrawal Agreement, unless and until an alternative is found.
A week later, during separate meetings, Johnson met the same response from European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and the Prime Minister of Luxembourg Xavier Bettel. He left Luxembourg with similar words ringing in his ear – that any new proposals must have the guarantees provided by the backstop contained in the Withdrawal Agreement. The British broadsheets, among them the Daily Telegraph where Johnson was once a columnist, were not impressed by the outcome. ‘Luxembourg laughs in Johnson’s face’ the Telegraph reported, while the Guardian headline said simply, ‘Johnson left humiliated’.
As the deadline for a Brexit deal approached without agreement on any alternative to Theresa May’s backstop, Johnson appeared to concede that he would allow an extension of the negotiations in order to avoid leaving the EU without a deal. The concession was made in a submission for a legal action taken in Scotland, which asked the courts to require that Johnson seek an extension to avoid leaving the UK without a deal.
During the case in the Scottish High Court – taken by Scottish National Party (SNP) MP Joanna Cherry QC, Jolyon Maugham QC and businessman Vince Dale – lawyers for Johnson said that he would seek an extension under the terms of the Benn Act if parliament did not agree on a Withdrawal Agreement by 19 October 2019. The Benn Act, introduced earlier by Labour MP Hilary Benn, forced the Conservative government to seek an extension to the 31 October deadline if parliament did not pass a Brexit deal before then.
Following a hastily-organised and private three-hour meeting between Johnson and Leo Varadkar on 10 October at the Thornton Manor Hotel near Liverpool, both leaders insisted that a deal was possible by the end of the month. According to the Taoiseach, as reported by the Irish Times, the two leaders had found ‘a pathway towards an agreement within weeks.’
The plan they discussed would see an all-Ireland regulatory zone for all goods, which would leave NI in the European single market. However, the arrangements would be subject to the consent of the devolved executive and assembly in the North, which would have to approve them in advance and renew that endorsement every four years. Given the unstable history of the institutions and the difficulty of achieving consent between the main parties when they were functioning, the proposals were very ambitious and also challenging for large sections of the Tory party and the DUP.
Varadkar also reminded the British prime minister that the deal had to be finalised with the EU negotiation team, led by the experienced French politician Michel Barnier, not with the Irish government. Barnier and his team, as well as Merkel and Macron, remained adamant that there would be no return to a hard border in Ireland. A customs border in the Irish Sea was emerging as the only acceptable basis for a deal with the EU and the Irish government.
As if Johnson needed reminding, DUP leader Arlene Foster repeated her opposition to any proposal that ‘traps NI in the EU single market or customs union’. As the British and EU negotiators entered into a tunnel of final negotiations before the deadline expired, Foster warned that the ‘DUP has always indicated that the United Kingdom must leave the EU as one nation and in so doing that no barriers to trade are erected within the UK.’ The EU, she said, must accept that:
the economic and constitutional integrity of the whole of the United Kingdom will have to be respected as we leave. As a consequence of the mandate given to us by voters in 2017, the DUP is very relevant in the parliamentary arithmetic and regardless of the ups and downs of the Brexit discussions, that has not changed. We will judge any outcome reached by the Prime Minister against the criteria above (DUP statement, Guardian, 17 October 2019).
Campaigners in the North noted that Foster and her party continued to oppose legislation on marriage equality, language and abortion rights that applied across the UK, while demanding respect for the ‘constitutional integrity of the whole of the UK’.
From the other side of the Atlantic, a powerful and timely intervention came from Nancy Pelosi, the leading Democrat and speaker of the US House of Representatives. Addressing an event to mark the contribution of her fellow Democratic Party congressman, Richard Neal, to the peace process in Northern Ireland, Pelosi warned the British government that it would not be able to negotiate a much-vaunted post-Brexit trade deal with the US if the GFA was jeopardised after its departure from the EU: ‘There won’t be any trade agreement that violates the Good Friday Agreement,’ she said, just days before a crucial meeting of the European Council in Brussels. ‘Our message to the British government is: “Don’t be misled into thinking there will be a US–UK trade agreement if the Good Friday Agreement accords are violated.”’
Days later, the EU leaders approved the latest proposals put forward by British negotiators, which included only slight differences to the agreement reached with Theresa May some months previously. The new deal included an assurance that there would be no return to a customs border in Ireland, much to the disappointment and anger of the DUP, who pledged to object when it returned to the House of Commons for ratification.
Speaking alongside an obviously pleased Leo Varadkar, President of the EU Council Donald Tusk said:
The key change in comparison with the earlier version of the deal is Prime Minister Johnson’s acceptance to have customs checks at the points of entry into Northern Ireland. This compromise will allow us to avoid border checks between Ireland and Northern Ireland and will ensure the integrity of the single market.
With the end of October deadline looming for British departure from the EU, and no prospect of getting the new proposals ratified by parliament in the face of fierce internal Conservative Party as well as NI unionist objections, Johnson obtained a three-month extension of the Brexit negotiations and called a general election for 12 December.
On 1 November 2019, another open letter from IF to Varadkar was published, calling for urgent protections for Irish citizens in the North in the light of Brexit and the continued suspension of the devolved political institutions. The letter was signed by over 1,000 people from all walks of life, almost two-thirds of whom were from the South. The substantial chorus ranged from singer Christy Moore, poet Paula Meehan and musician Sharon Shannon, to hurler DJ Carey, Mayor of Boston Marty Walsh, and Irish Times columnists Fintan O’Toole and David McWilliams. A host of other personalities across business, trade unions, sport, culture and entertainment signed their names to the letter, which was printed over a full page of the Irish Times.
In the letter, the organisers of the IF network asked for a mature and reasoned debate in advance of referendums and on the constitutional future of a new Ireland, following a vote for Irish unity, in contrast to the shambles of the Brexit process:
A clear majority of people in Ireland, both in this state and in the North, want to remain in the European Union. The majority of citizens in the North voted to remain in the 2016 referendum. This includes many unionists. In recent years, a conversation about Ireland’s future, and the place of unionists in it, is publicly taking place. Irish citizens should continue to enjoy the rights which accrue from membership of the European Union as well as the full protection of the ECJ. It is the responsibility of the government to ensure that the democratic wishes and rights of Irish citizens are respected and protected, regardless of where they live on the island.
They made their first call on the government to convene a citizens’ assembly in order to allow for a structured conversation about the manner in which constitutional and political change could be advanced and Irish unity achieved, as envisaged in the GFA. The request was inspired by the influence of citizens’ assemblies on marriage equality and reproductive rights, which paved the way for the successful referendums on both issues over recent years: ‘We ask the government to establish a citizens’ assembly reflecting the views of citizens North and South, or a forum to discuss the future and achieve maximum consensus on a way forward,’ the letter stated.
At a public meeting in Croke Park in Dublin later that month, speakers elaborated on the nature of the proposed citizens’ assembly. It should be chosen from people across the island, representing all strands of opinion, gender, identity and geographic location who could, they argued, debate in a reasoned and informed environment what Irish society could look like after unity. It could allow for detailed discussion on the nature of an all-island economy, health service, education system and guarantees to protect the rights of all citizens in a new, shared Ireland.
Among the speakers were a former member of the Victims Commission in Northern Ireland, Patricia MacBride; economist Dr Seamus McGuinness of the ESRI; and Ailbhe Smyth, a leader of the successful campaign for the repeal of the eighth amendment of the Irish Constitution, which resulted in the introduction of legal abortion in the South. Chaired by Senator Frances Black, the meeting also heard Professor Colin Harvey outline the requirement under the GFA to hold a referendum on Irish unity and suggested that it could be called in 2023, the 25th anniversary of the 1998 agreement. He insisted that setting a date would focus minds, and the two governments, on the urgent need for preparation.
Patricia MacBride, a lawyer and commentator, argued that people needed to have an idea of the future arrangements in a shared island and that it was not a simple question of the government in Dublin taking over the running of the Northern Ireland state. Explaining the need for a citizens’ assembly in a programme for the event, MacBride said that no one, including anyone in IF, was advocating for
a bolt-on of the 6 counties of the North to the 26 counties of the South with responsibility for health, education, the economy and the welfare of citizens becoming the responsibility of the Dublin government overnight … A citizens’ assembly is not a set of binary questions where people are brought in and asked to answer yes or no. It is a process that is focused on ensuring that democracy is truly representative and that the citizen is at the heart of the debate around political or constitutional reform.
She cited the recent examples of citizens’ assemblies that took place from October 2016 to 2018 in Dublin and had considered topics including the repeal of the eighth amendment, climate change, fixed term parliaments, the ageing population and the operation of future referendums. MacBride submitted that it was technically possible to ensure a stratified random sampling of the population across the island to ensure that the assembly was representative of all strands of gender, geography, identity and opinion. A citizens’ assembly should be sufficiently broad so that ‘it allows for real, informed, facilitated discussion on the economy and inward investment, the health service, the education system, the protection of rights and many other aspects of life and society,’ she said.
While there is no guarantee that the recommendations of a citizens’ assembly will be adopted by the government, the process did lead to the May 2018 referendum and the vote to legalise abortion in the South by a margin of 66.4 per cent to 33.6 per cent. According to figures from electionsIreland.org, proposals to allow same-sex marriage in the South were passed by 62 per cent to 38 per cent in a referendum in May 2015, after a similar exercise and extensive public discussion and debate.