Mary C. Murphy - A Troubled Constitutional Future: Northern Ireland after Brexit

Also by Mary C. Murphy and published by Agenda

Europe and Northern Irelands Future: Negotiating Brexits Unique Case

Mary C. Murphy and Jonathan Evershed 2022

This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.

No reproduction without permission.

All rights reserved.

First published in 2022 by Agenda Publishing

Agenda Publishing Limited

The Core

Bath Lane

Newcastle Helix

Newcastle upon Tyne

NE4 5TF

www.agendapub.com

ISBN 978-1-78821-411-7 (hardcover)

ISBN 978-1-78821-412-4 (paperback)

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Typeset by JS Typesetting Ltd, Porthcawl, Mid Glamorgan Printed and bound in the UK by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

Contents

Northern Irelands politics are characterized, and in large part defined, by volatility, conflict and instability. This is what makes them simultaneously so fascinating and so frustrating. Long before Brexit, attempting to make any hard or fast predictions about the trajectory of these politics had been a difficult undertaking, and arguably something of a fools errand. Brexit, and the rapid and radical political, cultural and constitutional destabilization that has flowed from it, has made this task all but impossible. The pace of the change and disruption that Brexit has brought in its wake has been exhausting to experience, let alone seek to make sense of. Already at saturation point, just as we were setting out to write this book, the global coronavirus pandemic became yet another source of uncertainty and anxiety and another moving target for us to seek to analyse.

Including as members of the Between Two Unions project team, we have been involved in charting the Brexit process in real time since 2016. As both citizens of these islands and scholars of their politics, we have watched, often in horror, at the way that events have accelerated since 2016. When the United Kingdom finally, and irrevocably, left the European Union at the end of January 2020, it was an occasion of great sadness for us. We have both worried, above all, about the impact of Brexit on politics and the people we care about in Northern Ireland. It is a place that we love and, frankly, wish that others particularly (though not exclusively) in the corridors of Whitehall and Westminster paid closer attention to. Peace and stability in Northern Ireland, and on the island of Ireland more widely, should not be an afterthought. For too many, it remains so.

We are also concerned for the impact of Brexit on the Republic of Ireland: the place we both call home. Brexits shadow falls here too and its impact will reverberate for many years to come. Factoring Irelands fate into discussions and decisions is something we believe is not just important, but imperative for the health of the relationship between Britain and Ireland.

This book represents our attempt to keep pace with the impact that Brexit has had in and on Northern Ireland. We have made our best attempt to assess where the different agents involved in shaping Northern Irelands constitutional future stand after Brexit; the balance of forces shaping the relationships between them; and the implications for the debate about constitutional futures on the island of Ireland. We have no doubt that there are those who will disagree with our analysis, but it has been shaped by several years of close involvement with Brexits ebb and flow, and we offer it as our considered view of the impact and consequences of this process, at this particular juncture.

For Northern Ireland, Brexit will arguably never be done. Each time we have finished one draft of this book, something has happened to cause us to reopen the document and begin redrafting to account for how all of the perpetually moving parts have once again been rearranged. Weve no doubt that when we finally put this book to bed, some new contingency will problematize one or more of our claims or observations, or even render them false or obsolete. Hopefully, we have more enduringly captured something of the broad thrust of Northern Irelands post-Brexit constitutional politics, and ask forgiveness for anything that has become less relevant or, indeed, true, since we wrote it.

This book is a product of our work on the ESRC-funded project, Between Two Unions: The Constitutional Future of the Islands After Brexit (ES/P009441/1). The project facilitated our sustained engagement with a wide community of stakeholders in the Brexit process within and across Great Britain and Ireland, including politicians, civil servants, political advisors, journalists and academics. We are immensely grateful to those who gave of their time and insight and we hope we have done justice to their contributions. Our considerable thanks are owed to our co-members of the Between Two Unions project team, whose support has been both inspiring and instrumental. We share this book with these colleagues, who played such an important role in honing our understanding of this Brexit era.

Our gratitude too to the team at Agenda Publishing, particularly Alison Howson for her guidance and encouragement, and to the anonymous reviewer who provided helpful and constructive feedback and advice.

Our thanks to academic colleagues and students at University College Cork for providing a space and opportunity for us to be able to dedicate ourselves to writing this book. Particular thanks are owed to the members of the Ports, Past and Present project team, as part of which Jonathan was supported to continue and develop his research on the impact of Brexit on relationships on and between these islands.

A huge thank you to our friends and families who sustained and supported us during the writing process. This book was written at kitchen tables during a global pandemic, and we are acutely aware that those closest to us must feel like they wrote this book with us! Indeed, that we were able to write it at all owes as much to them as it does to us. So finally, our deepest thanks are owed to Paul and Maia for their unfailing support, their patience and their love.

Mary C. Murphy

Jonathan Evershed

Cork