Brexit and the Northern Ireland Peace Process

2021 ◽  
pp. 71-90
Author(s):  
Eileen Connolly ◽  
John Doyle
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Political Conflict ◽  
Community Relations ◽  
The Political ◽  
Good Friday ◽  
Core Issue ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Eu

This chapter focuses on the political situation in Northern Ireland, outlining the impact of the Northern Ireland Protocol on cross-community relations. It reflects on the consequences that social change will have on the option for Irish unification. It also provides a background of the Northern Ireland Protocol, analysing why the protection of the Belfast Good Friday Agreement became a core issue for the EU and why a sea border emerged as the agreed solution. The chapter examines the political cleavages in Northern Ireland that underpin the deep conflict over the location of the post-Brexit border. It also elaborates why the location of the border will remain a focus for political conflict, although the Northern Ireland Protocol allowed the EU and the UK to reach agreement.

The Future of British–Irish Relations after Brexit

2020 ◽  
pp. 254-273
Author(s):  
Etain Tannam
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Peace Process ◽  
Good Friday ◽  
Sectarian Violence ◽  
Good Friday Agreement ◽  
Potential Methods ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Eu

This chapter assesses the impact of UK withdrawal from the EU on British–Irish relations. It examines yet another possible disintegrative effect of Brexit on the UK system, namely the re-unification of Ireland. The 1998 Belfast/Good Friday Agreement, bringing to a close decades of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland, had created an excellent working relations between Dublin and London. However, Brexit has threated this equilibrium, and has unexpectedly brought back on the agenda a possible border poll. The chapter then looks at the unfolding of the Brexit negotiations from June of 2016 to March of 2020 from the perspectives of British–Irish relations. It also studies the importance of the British–Irish relationship and the EU in the peace process in Northern Ireland, and considers potential methods of managing the relationship after Brexit.

Brexit and the Northern Ireland Question

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Doyle ◽  
Eileen Connolly
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Peace Process ◽  
Good Friday ◽  
Good Friday Agreement ◽  
The Common ◽  
Potential Impact ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Policy Solutions ◽  
The Eu

This chapter analyses the potential impact of Brexit on the Northern Ireland ‘peace process’, through a discussion of four interrelated issues—political divisions in Northern Ireland; the single market; the common travel area; and the Good Friday Agreement, all of which reflect the fundamental political divisions between Irish nationalists and those who believe that Northern Ireland should remain part of the UK. The chapter highlights two main threats to peace – the undermining of the Good Friday Agreement which is premised on membership of the EU and its institutional framework, and the crucial issue of where the inevitable hard border between the EU and the UK will be located. It argues that Brexit has the potential to destroy the peace process and suggests possible policy solutions to mitigate the impact of Brexit on Northern Ireland, while also assessing the political obstacles to the adoption of such flexible policy solutions.

The EU’s Stealthy Hegemony and Ambiguous Neighbors

2021 ◽  
Vol 120 (824) ◽  
pp. 112-117
Author(s):  
Alexander Clarkson
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Northern Ireland ◽  
European Integration ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Control ◽  
The Political ◽  
The European Union ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Eu

European integration based on a supranational form of pooled sovereignty has taken on increasingly state-like qualities. With every move toward absorbing additional members, the European Union system has expanded its geographic reach. The state-like power of the EU is apparent in the impact its integration processes have had in societies just outside its borders. Its growing influence is most notable in misfit border territories, from Kaliningrad to Transnistria, and from Cyprus to Northern Ireland, that are tenuously under the political control of neighboring geopolitical powers.

scholarly journals Managing Disintegration: How the European Parliament Responded and Adapted to Brexit

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 16-26
Author(s):  
Edoardo Bressanelli ◽  
Nicola Chelotti ◽  
Wilhelm Lehmann
Keyword(s):  
Member State ◽  
Direct Consequence ◽  
European Parliament ◽  
The Political ◽  
Active Involvement ◽  
Indirect Impact ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Political Groups ◽  
The Eu

Brexit makes both a direct and an indirect impact on the European Parliament (EP). The most direct consequence is the withdrawal of the 73-member strong UK contingent and the changing size of the political groups. Yet, the impact of Brexit is also felt in more oblique ways. Focussing on the role and influence of the EP in the EU–UK negotiations, and of the British delegation in the EP, this article shows that the process, and not just the outcome of Brexit, has significant organisational implications for the EP and its political groups. Moreover, it also showcases the importance of informal rules and norms of behaviour, which were affected by Brexit well ahead of any formal change to the UK status as a Member State. The EP and its leadership ensured the active involvement of the EP in the negotiating process—albeit in different ways for the withdrawal agreement and the future relationship—and sought to minimise the costs of Brexit, reducing the clout of British members particularly in the allocation of legislative reports.

scholarly journals Unintended repercussions of Brexit? The departure of skilled Germans from Britain after the referendum

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nico Stawarz ◽  
Nils Witte
Keyword(s):  
Panel Study ◽  
The Political ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Return Migrants ◽  
Political Situation ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Legal Consequences ◽  
The Eu

Although the referendum on the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union—better known by its portmanteau Brexit—had no immediate legal consequences for migrants, the changed public atmosphere and looming consequences for their status are creating uncertainty among migrants in the UK. This article analyses the impact of Brexit on Germans who lived in the UK and returned to Germany in 2017/18. Our analysis relies on the first wave of the German Emigration and Remigration Panel Study (GERPS), a novel probability-based sample of German return migrants from the EU member countries. The results show that more than half of German return migrants from the UK are strongly affected by Brexit. Furthermore, those who returned on account of Brexit are more likely to blame the political situation, the lack of social security, and their dissatisfaction with life in their host country than those who did not return on account of Brexit – or than those returning from other EU15 member countries. In sum, our results indicate that Brexit may have the unintended consequence of driving out skilled and socio-culturally more integrated migrants who had been living in the UK for several years.

Epilogue: Brexit, the border and nationalism’s bounceback

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paddy Hoey
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Northern Ireland ◽  
The Political ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Sinn Fein ◽  
Good Friday ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The Eu

By the end of the 2010s, Sinn Féin was by far the strongest republican voice was rapidly building a stronger base in the Republic of Ireland where it had become the third largest party in the Dáil. But, the structures of the Peace Process and the Stormont Assembly meant that it was no further to significantly challenging of the political status quo in Northern Ireland. The vote for Brexit, based as it was on a binary notion of British sovereignty that had been fudged by the Good Friday Agreement, changed that. The nature of Britain’s exiting of the European Union had massive ramifications of the Irish border. With a majority of people in Northern Ireland voting to remain (with 85% of the nationalist population doing so), the unionist veto over the wishes of the wider population came under deeper scrutiny. For Sinn Féin, which had been a long-term critic of the EU, this provided an opportunity putting the border back on the agenda. For dissidents, they found themselves in the unlikely position of sharing the same political standpoint as Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, and, allegedly, the Queen.

scholarly journals ‘Flexible and Imaginative’: The EU’s Accommodation of Northern Ireland in the UK–EU Withdrawal Agreement

2021 ◽  
pp. 002088172110019
Author(s):  
Katy Hayward
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Member State ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Unique Type ◽  
Decision To Leave ◽  
Good Friday ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The Uk ◽  
External Actors ◽  
The Eu

The 1998 Good Friday (Belfast) Agreement that cemented the peace process formalized Northern Ireland’s position as a region integrally connected to both Great Britain and the Republic of Ireland. The multilevel governance and cross-border cooperation this entailed was enabled by common UK and Irish membership of the European Union. The UK’s decision to leave the EU posed risks to this settlement. In response, they engaged in a quest for ‘flexible and imaginative solutions’ to this conundrum. The unique arrangements established through the Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland in the UK–EU Withdrawal Agreement (2019) mark an innovative and ambitious development for the EU. First, it de facto includes a region of a non-member state within its internal market for goods and, second, it delegates the enforcement of its rules to that non-member state. The Protocol represents a significant departure for the EU in terms of its typical engagement with external actors. Most significantly, it will not only represent a ‘live’ concern for the EU but a unique type of responsibility.

scholarly journals What Does Google Trends Tell Us about the Impact of Brexit on the Unemployment Rate in the UK?

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 1011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mihaela Simionescu ◽  
Dalia Streimikiene ◽  
Wadim Strielkowski
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Unemployment Rate ◽  
State Policies ◽  
Google Trends ◽  
The Political ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Macroeconomic Indicators ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Impact

Considering the debate related to the potential effects of Brexit on the UK economy, the aim of this paper is to assess the impact of Brexit on the monthly unemployment rate since the vote for the UK leave from the European Union. This is one of the most important indicators of sustainable development for the country. The novelty of this research is given by the use of microdata to reflect the political instability brought by Brexit, with Google Trends being the tool for collecting the data. Moreover, the data for the four countries that compose the UK are considered (England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales) in a panel data and multilevel framework. The results are consistent with the analysis of important macroeconomic indicators and indicate that Brexit concerns decreased the unemployment rate in the period June 2016–March 2019, with few arguments being provided for this. The state policies should encourage the investment in order to support the future economic growth and sustainable development of the UK.

Protestant Disillusionment with the Northern Ireland Peace Agreement

2004 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-125 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernadette C. Hayes ◽  
Ian McAllister
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Community Relations ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
The Political ◽  
Peace Agreement ◽  
Good Friday ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Public Opinion Polls ◽  
Opinion Polls

The period since the 1998 Good Friday Agreement has witnessed a degree of electoral polarisation that dwarfs any previous period during the current Troubles in scale and intensity. This has been attributed to Protestant disillusionment with the Agreement and the political institutions it established. The results presented here using a wide range of public opinion polls support this view. Protestants are much more pessimistic of both current and future relations between the two communities than are Catholics. The increasingly negative view of Protestants, particularly in terms of future community relations, is reflected in declining support for the Agreement. Protestants who believe that relations between the two religious communities in five years time will be worse than they are now are significantly more likely to vote against the Agreement. This is the case even among previous Protestant supporters of the Agreement.

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