The post-Brexit provisions keep Northern Ireland in the single European market to avoid the return of a physical border with the Republic of Ireland (a member country of the EU), which for the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) alienates the region from the rest of the country and makes a unified island with its southern neighbors more likely, the objective of the other large regional grouping that is Sinn Féin, the political arm of the extinct Irish Republican Army (IRA).
“The system in Northern Ireland depends on old enemies working together. This has never been easy, and even before the last crisis we have had severe tensions. But since the Brexit referendum in 2016, Northern Ireland has struggled to have any government The administration continues, but there are no new decisions on budgets, policy or legislation,” Duncan Morrow, an expert on the Northern Irish conflict at the University of Ulster, based in Belfast, told Télam.
“While there has been no major return to violence, the situation remains fragile. Northern Ireland appears to be in a stalemate, not a crisis. This feeds a deep sense of disappointment at the moment,” he said.
Despite this situation, he stressed that “nobody, except for a tiny minority, wants a return to the violence prior to the agreement. So there is still support, although also disappointment.”
Katy Hayward, Professor of Political Sociology at Queen’s University Belfast, spoke in tune: “Twenty-five years after the Good Friday Agreement, seven out of ten people still think it is still the best basis for governing Northern Ireland. However, most also believe that it needs some reforms. This is mainly because, in four of the last six years, its democratic institutions have not worked.”
The exit from the EU also weakened the DUP, the historical majority force, and in May of last year caused the regional elections to be won by Sinn Féin for the first time since the partition of the island in 1921, although the unionists later They refused to form a government and the Northern Irish Executive remained vacant pending new elections, even without a date.
“Sinn Féin’s victory was very significant in symbolic terms, considering that Northern Ireland was set up to have a unionist majority. The fact that a Nationalist MP would serve as Chief Minister is, of course, very significant. However, it does not necessarily imply a paradigm shift, because we have seen that institutions need inter-community consent between nationalists and unionists to function. And for the moment, we do not have that consent,” Hayward, author of several publications on the issue, stressed to this agency. conflict.
Along the same lines, Morrow opined: “The electoral success of Sinn Féin has great symbolic importance. Sinn Féin exists to get rid of Northern Ireland, so having a Chief Minister from that party presents a huge challenge for unionists. In addition , they are associated with the IRA, and many loyalists still see them as a real risk, and are angry at their refusal to apologize for past killings.”
Although the Good Friday Agreement allowed the disarmament of Northern Irish paramilitaries, dismantled the militarized land border and led to the withdrawal of British troops, isolated acts of violence continue.
The latest example of this was the attempted assassination of police officer John Caldwell, who was shot multiple times in February this year as he was leaving a sports complex with his son, in an attack claimed by Republican dissidents branded as the New IRA. .
The attack united Northern Ireland’s political leaders in condemnation and prompted the British government to raise the extremist threat level from “substantial” to “severe”, meaning an attack is “highly likely”.
In addition, the walls, dubbed “peace walls”, still exist, separating Protestant and Catholic neighborhoods in Belfast and other large urban areas.
“They are there because there is still a risk of violence in those areas. And this is partly because, in moments of political tension, that tension can be expressed through riots and some violence against the ‘other’ community,” Hayward said.
“As long as the conditions are not in place for people to believe that the best way to make their voices heard is by voting rather than rioting, these touch zones will remain vulnerable and peace walls will be seen as good for something,” sentenced the academic.
“The Good Friday Agreement was a very complex agreement, but it focused more on preventing the violence of the past than on building a future together. Walls no longer protect people from everyday threats, but there is still a feeling of suspected in many communities, so we have only made limited progress in taking it down,” Morrow said.
And he concluded: “Change will depend on a more stable political situation and a stronger effort to get rid of the armed groups, many of which continue to exist.”
In this context, Northern Ireland is preparing to carry out a series of events for the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement in an atmosphere of reflection rather than celebration.
The president of the United States, Joe Biden (of Irish descent), will participate in the commemoration, who will visit Belfast between April 11 and 14 and then go to the neighboring Republic of Ireland, where he will deliver a speech in its capital Dublin, reported the White House.
Source: Ambito
