Architects of peace in Northern Ireland see hope beyond Brexit deadlock

DUBLIN/LONDON, April 3 (Reuters) – A quarter of a century after ugly compromises ended decades of bloodshed in Northern Ireland, some of the architects of the Good Friday Agreement hope that the agreement can help inspire a route out of the near-permanent political crisis in the region.

In April 1998, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his Irish counterpart, Bertie Ahern, helped Irish nationalists and British unionists craft a complex power-sharing arrangement that paved the way for militants on both sides to lay down their arms.

The peace has completely transformed the region, largely ending three decades of bitter violence which killed 3,600.

But devolved power-sharing governance was struggling even before Britain’s vote to leave the European Union upset the delicate political balance on the island of Ireland, and some fear the ongoing boycott by the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), which once it dominated the region, it could prove fatal.

Those who remember the repeated false dawns of 25 years ago are more optimistic.

“Nothing is unsolvable,” said Blair, summing up the stubborn optimism that many developed working in Northern Ireland at the turn of the millennium.

“Today … it is still very tense, but I think there is a depth to the process. There are roots that have been put down that I don’t think anyone on the island of Ireland really wants to disturb,” he told Reuters in a statement. interview. “People realize that going back in time would be a complete disaster.”

PRINCIPLE OF CONSENT

One source of the current political crisis is the feeling that Brexit and its aftermath have upset part of the balance of the 1998 deal, specifically the principle of cross-community consent embodied in the requirement that main legislation be supported by a majority of both nationalists. . and trade unionists in the decentralized assembly.

Nationalists, mostly Catholics, say Northern Ireland was booted out of the EU in a UK-wide vote even though its smallest region voted 56% to 44% to stay.

Unionists, who are mainly Protestant and largely backed Brexit, say the imposition of trade barriers with the rest of the UK in a bid to avoid a hard border with EU member Ireland was done without their consent.

That led the DUP to collapse power sharing a year ago, a position that has doubled in recent weeks in the wake of a post-Brexit reworking of trade rules under a compromise known as the windsor frame mediated by the prime minister Rishi Sunak.

With the DUP saying it won’t be back until major changes are made to the deal, and London and Brussels rule it out, there seems to be no room for compromise. A DUP lawmaker said the EU-UK deal had effectively “broken” the 1998 deal.

The DUP was the only major party not to participate in the 1998 negotiations, but it later joined the power-sharing government and went on to supplant the more moderate Ulster Unionists as the main voice of Protestant voters.

“There is exhaustion and frustration” at the DUP’s repeated objections, said Ahern, Ireland’s prime minister from 1997 to 2008.

“But I’ve always seen this in a pragmatic way that if there’s a problem, try to fix it and I think we have to try to fix it. It’s doable. It’s bordering on ridiculous, but let’s try to do it.” “

STAGNATION

Coalition binding that gives the largest party on both sides of the sectarian divide the power to end power sharing has been identified by many as a key obstacle to progress.

That, along with the rise of the Alianza party, which identifies neither as nationalist nor unionist, has prompted calls for a review of a political architecture based on a society divided in two.

“There is no such thing as the status quo. You either go forwards or you go backwards,” said Ahern, who believes a review is needed. “If you stay put, what happens is that you eventually fall over.”

The rules on the return were already changed in 2006 to overcome a previous suspension.

But Blair said all parties must “proceed very carefully” with any reform and that the Brexit dispute must first be resolved.

‘NEW ARCHITECTURE’

Gerry Adams, another key player in the 1998 talks as head of the Irish Republican Army’s political wing, said he would be “very, very slow to make changes to the Good Friday Agreement.”

But he said that if the DUP, the main rival of his Sinn Fein party, does not re-enter the government, other options would have to be considered.

“If they’re not going to do it, let them tell us and then we’ll all move towards a different architecture because there can be no going back to what’s described as direct (British) rule,” Adams told Reuters.

Adams, who has always denied being a member of the IRA, is also optimistic, but for a different reason: His party has said it hopes the British government will call a referendum on Northern Ireland’s break with British rule within a decade.

The 1998 agreement requires London to call such a vote if a majority seems likely to back Irish unity.

“The sands are moving,” Adams said.

Despite the current crisis, “a space has opened up where people can moderate our differences politically,” said the former Sinn Fein leader.

“We’ve been able to develop a path to change that will lead to more change, I think, in the future.”

Additional reporting by Amanda Ferguson in Belfast; Written by Conor Humphries; Edited by Alex Richardson

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