april 2021 issue 481 april 50 2021 FORTNIGHT@ politics, arts & culture in northern ireland FORT NIGHT @ 5 0 Problems with the Independents build communities Protocol How the side effects can be mitigated by Rory Montgomery The standoffs and failures in Brussels by Bernard Conlon New trade opportunities by Edgar Morgenroth Student discounts Personalised service Author events more than just Supporting local artists Also in this issue: Aaron Edwards on the response from books Sole distributors of Fortnight at 50 Loyalists, Jamie Pow on the need for Unionist bridge-building and issue Claire Mitchell on attitudes to the NHS 83 Botanic Avenue, Belfast, BT7 1JL 481 In the Arts pages: Rosemary Jenkinson looks for a Protestant @noalibisbooks Tel: +44 2890 319 601 Heaney, Malachi O’Doherty on Northern humour, with prose and Email: [email protected] www.noalibis.com @noalibisbookstore poetry from new writers Contents ortnight @50 Editorial 1 Politics Rory Montgomery: Protocol problems for both Sovreignty, Good Friday parts of Ireland: North and South 2 and the Protocol Bernard Conlon: Britain, Ireland and Europe: f Vacillating and vitriol over vaccines 6 The purpose of the Ireland/Northern Ireland Edgar Morgenroth: NI Protocol, a view from Dublin 9 Protocol was and is to protect the terms of the Andy Pollak: Why I don’t believe in Border Polls 11 Good Friday Agreement and with it the rights and Aaron Edwards: Leaders and followers in interests of all the people in both parts of Ireland. Ulster Unionism 14 The current and continuing standoffs between the Jamie Pow: The bridges unionists need to build 16 United Kingdom and European Union and their Connal Parr: The SDLP at 50 18 interpretation of its terms is not achieving that. Instead we have shortages, disruption to established Economics trade across the Irish sea and increased communal Graham Brownlow: Hard heads, soft hearts and tension in the North. solid institutions 20 In attempting to remedy the situation both Emer Smyth and Robert Morgan: Generational governments would do well to understand and learn from the reasons why the Good Friday Agreement unfairness & COVID-19: All in this together? 22 was needed. For many years since partition in 1921 Society/Culture the British and Irish Governments asserted Claire Mitchell: Thank you NHS conflicting views of sovereignty and the status of (sorry about the PPE) 24 Northern Ireland and engaged from time to time in Paul Nolan: Did you say kneecapping? 26 trade sanctions. But they recognised the close ties Marcus Leroux: The annals of Tayto Island 27 between the peoples of Ireland and Britain and developed flexible rules on travel and voting rights. Malachi O’Doherty: Northern humour 29 Poem: Bebe Ashley 31 When the Troubles escalated in the 1970s and 80s Cian O’Neill: False flags, falso dawns and claptocrats: they eventually accepted that it was their joint duty to look after the peoples in the North by increasing The London Letter 32 their joint supervision and extending the rules on Arts joint citizenship. It is now also the duty of the Rosemary Jenkinson: On the eve of the Centenary European Union to look after the rights and where is the Protestant Heaney? 35 interests of their citizens in both parts of Ireland. Michelle Gallen: Factory girls – an extract 39 While the United Kingdom remained in the European Poems: Raquel McKee and Nandi Jola 43 Union that was easy. During the Brexit negotiations both sides began to look for political advantage in Books asserting their respective sovereignties without Feargal Cochrane: What difference did it make? 44 much regard to the practical impact and side-effects Alexis Forss: Pulp anthropology 45 on the complex three-way relationships North/South, East/West and internal. Poems: Scott McKendry and Andrew Sturrock 48 Both sides now need to accept that Northern Ireland is a small, anomalous, and fragile territory that needs careful handling. What is needed is light touch regulation both North/South and East/West ACTING EDITOR: Tom Hadden designed to prevent Northern Ireland becoming a LITERARY EDITOR: Anne Devlin ARTS EDITOR: Cian O’Neill serious threat to trade, health and environmental Design by Wendy Dunbar, Dunbar Design regimes in the United Kingdom and Europe. What is Printed by W&G Baird Ltd, Antrim not needed is a highly legalistic and disruptive © Fortnight Publications Ltd 2020 insistence on the preservation of conflicting European and British sovereignties. ortnight @50 fProtocol problems for both parts of Ireland: North and South Rory Montgomery Rory Montgomery is a former Irish diplomat and an honorary professor at the Mitchell Institute, Queen’s University Belfast In the first weeks of 2021, some of the practical consequences of Brexit, including the Protocol, became apparent – in Britain, in Northern Ireland, in the Republic and across the European Union. Some are teething problems and will be resolved in full or in part. But changes in trading flows and volumes are inevitable. And while the focus is on goods, the longer-term impact on services will be considerable, including for Northern Ireland, which for these purposes will be fully outside the EU (or fully within the UK). Some of the problems now apparent are highly visible, easily understood by the public, and have unpalatable effects: pets and rose bushes mean a lot to many people. Photograph Dermott Dunbar Before the referendum the Irish Government But while concrete problems are challenging, stressed – as indeed did Tony Blair and John Major constitutional and political issues can be incendiary. – that a vote to leave could have serious When unionists argue that the Protocol violates the repercussions in Ireland. There were concerns about Good Friday Agreement and undermines the other issues – the protection of human rights, Union, have they a case? North/South co-operation, and the maintenance of 2 FORTNIGHT @ 50 POLITICS the Common Travel Area – but from the beginning inexorably led to the Protocol. Theresa May’s the focus was mainly on the border. Ireland was attempt to break free of this logic led her to propose remarkably successful in persuading the a UK-wide alternative which would EU member states and institutions to effectively have meant no meaningful accept its analysis and adopt its objectives. Boris Johnson Brexit at all and was doomed from the In the context of protecting the peace initially refused start. process and the Good Friday Agreement, to face up to the Boris Johnson initially refused to face “the aim of avoiding a hard border” was realities of the up to the realities of the choice he was front and centre of the EU’s negotiating going to have to make. He assured choice he was mandate. For the EU the maintenance of unionists that he would not accept a deal the integrity of the Single Market was also going to have to which placed any barriers between Great a paramount objective – as it was for make. Britain and Northern Ireland. But Ireland. eventually he did, despite his persistent A “hard border” is not a precise legal term. It claims that he didn’t. The British Government, might have been interpreted as allowing some light reasonably from its point of view, had prioritised arrangements some distance away from the actual the interests of the UK as a whole, and its own frontier. But it was progressively firmed up on the political interests – avoiding a no deal crash-out EU side to mean that there could be no checks or negotiated Brexit. controls on the island of Ireland. This in turn led The point of this recapitulation is to to the conclusion that Northern Ireland must demonstrate that the die was cast early in the Brexit remain aligned with relevant EU single market and process. The Irish Government remained consistent customs regulations, unless other arrangements with in its analysis and tireless in its diplomacy. There the same effect (which nobody on the EU side were intermittent attempts by unionists and their could envisage) were agreed. sympathisers to offer an alternative interpretation In the crucial early months of the negotiations of the implications of the Good Friday Agreement, the UK essentially permitted Ireland to present itself but these never gained serious traction in London as the primary guardian of the Good Friday or Brussels. The EU side never re-examined its Agreement. It largely accepted – or at least did not assumptions about threats to peace and where they seriously question – an interpretation of the Good might come from. Friday Agreement which highlighted its In fact, the Good Friday Agreement says either North/South dimension. It also agreed to the model little or nothing about the European Union, about of NI/EU alignment set out in the December 2017 the border between North and South, or about backstop. It did so to allow negotiations to move on trade within the UK. Therefore, the argument that to other questions, and with the expectation that Brexit or its outworkings formally violate the these issues would be revisited. This was Agreement is hard to sustain. But Brexit seriously understandable. But it created the dynamic which breaches the context and spirit of the Agreement, Ireland/Northern Ireland Protocol Article 1 Objectives 1 This Protocol is without prejudice to the provisions of the 1998 Agreement in respect of the constitutional status of Northern Ireland and the principle of consent, which provides that any change in that status can only be made with the consent of a majority of its people. 2 This Protocol respects the essential State functions and territorial integrity of the United Kingdom. 3 This Protocol sets out arrangements necessary to address the unique circumstances on the island of Ireland, 3to maintain the necessary conditions for continued North-South cooperation, to avoid a hard border and to protect the 1998 Agreement in all its dimensions.FORTNIGHT @ 50 POLITICS with very real political and psychological effects.