quiet Catholic nationalists are openly campaigning for a united
Ireland, signaling deep shifts in the United Kingdom’s most troubled
province since Britain voted to leave the EU.
Eighteen years after a peace deal ended decades of fighting between mainly Catholic nationalists who favor a united Ireland
and mainly Protestant unionists who favor remaining part of the United
Kingdom, Britain’s Brexit vote is making people on both sides of the
divide in Northern Ireland think the unthinkable.
Northern
Ireland, like neighboring Scotland, voted to stay in the European
Union, with 56 pecent in favor, even though Britain as a whole voted to
leave the bloc.
“I was always a ‘small u’ unionist. But I could not in all good conscience say I could vote for Northern Ireland to remain a member of the United Kingdom,” said Christopher Woodhouse, a 25-year-old from Belfast.
“I am softening to the idea of Irish unity, purely on economic issues,” he said. “I am a European.”
For years, a firm majority of people in Northern Ireland
— many Catholics as well as nearly all Protestants — have favored
continuing as part of the United Kingdom, drawn to the status quo as a
guarantee of stability and prosperity.
But that has been jeopardized at a stroke by the prospect that Britain could quit the European Union and that Scotland could break away from the United Kingdom.
The
Brexit referendum suggests a new center ground could form of people
from both faith communities who fear the economic uncertainty of leaving
the EU.
“People are saying for the first time in their life they
would vote for united Ireland, having never contemplated it before,”
said Steven Agnew, the leader of the Green Party in Northern Ireland.
The membership of both Ireland and Britain in the European Union
was a cornerstone of the 1998 agreement that ended the fighting over
whether the predominately Protestant six counties of northeast Ireland should be British or Irish.
EU
rules ensure free trade and travel, and allow British or Irish citizens
to work, claim benefits and be treated in hospitals in either country.
People living on either side of the border may hold either passport or
both, with little practical effect on how they are treated by either
state.
Although Northern Irish citizens are entitled to passports
from Ireland, many unionists would not apply for them. But there were
several unionists in a queue seeking Irish passport application forms at
the main post office in Belfast.
One said she was shocked and
disappointed by the Brexit vote, and saw an Irish passport as the only
way to retain her EU citizenship. None would give their names, as
applying for an Irish passport can be controversial among unionists.
Quitting the EU would have direct costs on a poor province that relies on it more than other parts of the United Kingdom.
Northern
Ireland’s largest bank, Ulster Bank, said uncertainty around the terms
for Britain’s exit from the EU could make Northern Ireland
a “no-go zone” for some foreign direct investment. Brexit could cause
lower growth, higher unemployment and cutbacks in government spending.
“My
stomach is churning at all that’s happening,” said Robert McClenaghan,
an Irish Republican Army (IRA) member turned community worker,
describing the potential loss of hundreds of millions of euros of EU
funds for former militants, victims groups, and cross-community youth
work. “We are in danger of a return to conflict – at a low intensity
level – if those funds are taken away,” he said.
Many believe the
biggest threat to the peace would be the appearance of some kind of
border checks. The huge military checkpoints that dotted the border were
dismantled in the wake of the peace deal.
Pro-Brexit politicians
have said the Irish frontier would remain open once Britain leaves the
EU, but Remain supporters say this would be impossible if Britain wants
to limit migration from EU countries whose nationals are free to enter
Ireland.
“If they put a border up, the dissidents will blow it
up,” said Sid Johnson, a 68-year-old unionist Leave voter shopping on
Belfast’s Shankill Road. If the police are forced to send in armed men
to defend the posts, he said, escalation could be swift. Under the peace
deal, the largest nationalist party, Sinn Fein, co-rules the province
with the unionist DUP, which campaigned for Britain to leave the EU.
Sinn
Fein’s party chairman pounced on the Brexit vote, saying it meant
Britain had “forfeited any mandate to represent the interests of people
here.” The party later cooled its rhetoric, with Deputy First Minister
Martin McGuinness saying a united Ireland
referendum should be held “at some stage in the future.” The party this
week held the first of a series of rallies for a united Ireland.
A united Ireland has been the cherished dream of Irish nationalists since Northern Ireland
was formed by Britain to protect the large Protestant community in the
island’s northeast from the Catholic dominated state formed to the south
in 1921.
More than 3,600 people died in fighting between the
late 1960s and late 1990s, between Catholics who said they were denied
basic human rights and wanted to join Ireland and Protestants defending the union with Britain.
Under
the 1998 peace deal, the British government was given the power to call
a referendum if it appears likely a majority of those voting would seek
to form part of a united Ireland.
While higher birth rates among Catholics suggest they will become the majority in Northern Ireland
within a generation, opinion polls have consistently shown as many as
half of Catholics still favored the stability of the United Kingdom.
