Did not realize that Brexit Leave vote would bring Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland border into focus and be so complex to solve

Last updated on 8th Feb. 2019

First I would like to go down memory lane. In 1985-86 when I lived in Brussels, Belgium for 15 months, I got friendly with a person from Belfast, Northern Ireland who was at my workplace of Wang ITRC (International Telecommunications Research Centre). I was a contractor from a Bombay software company (Datamatics) while he was a contractor from, if I recall correctly, a British software company (Logica).

Let me refer to him as B. Now at that time, the impression I had of Belfast was driven by what I would read in the media. The media would report unfortunate violent incidents in the conflict that Northern Ireland was in then. For more on the conflict see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Troubles. This problem eventually got resolved in 1998.

B was a nice guy and he refuted this view of Belfast. He said that it was a nice place and implied that the media gave a distorted picture of Belfast.

B spoke English with the Irish accent which I found to be quite delightful. Of course, my spoken English would have had my Indian accent.

I recall with fondness, my interactions with B then.

I was really happy to know that the violence issues in Northern Ireland had got resolved with the 1998 agreement.

In the recent past, as I tried to follow why the Brexit matter has become so tortuous in Britain, I came across references to Northern Ireland border with Republic of Ireland being a contentious issue in Brexit negotiations.

Here are two videos I saw today which provided me decent information on the matter:

Brexit explained: What is the problem with the Irish border?, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cfI5on5n84, 5 min. 34 secs, published by Channel 4 News on 7th Nov. 2018. The crucial issue is that after Britain leaves the EU, the EU border with UK would be the land border between Republic of Ireland which is part of the EU, and Northern Ireland, which is part of UK. Goods travelling across this EU border need to be regulated. That may need a fenced/walled border for easy control. But it is fenced border in the past that is viewed as having contributed to violence in Northern Ireland. So UK including Northern Ireland does not seem to prefer to fence the border. Nor does the EU want to fence the border. But then how will the flow of goods across the border be regulated? That seems to be the key issue here. Britain and EU so far have not been able to come to an agreement on this.

The historical background is that Ireland was under English rule in the past centuries. After a war of independence from 1919 to 1921, most of Ireland won freedom from English rule (Irish free state got established in 1922, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Free_State, which eventually became Republic of Ireland in 1949, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Ireland). Now the free part of Ireland had a Catholic majority. But a northern part of the island of Ireland had a Protestant majority with Catholic minority. The Unionists or Loyalists of Northern Ireland, most of whom were (and still are, I believe) Protestants, wanted to stay with the UK. But this was not acceptable to the Republicans/Nationalists of the Irish Free State/Republic of Ireland, most of whom were (and still are, I believe) Catholic. Most of the Catholic minority in Northern Ireland too would, I guess, have been part of/supporting the Republicans/Nationalists.

In the late 1960s, this resulted in violence in Northern Ireland which continued till 1998, and is referred to as The Troubles, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Troubles. British soldiers were stationed in Northern Ireland and clashed with the Republicans/Nationalists, with losses of lives on both sides. The total killed, including civilians, in this conflict is over 3,500 and the injured are over 47,000.

2) Brexit deadlock - as Tusk says ‘special place in hell’ for Brexiteers with no plan, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEI4_NTJDto, 15 min 5 secs, published on 6th Feb. 2019 by Channel 4 News.

This video gives a glimpse of the harsh rhetoric that has entered into the public discussions/discourse between concerned political leaders of Britain, the EU and Republic of Ireland on this Northern Ireland and Brexit matter. To make things more complicated, while the majority of the UK voted to Leave, the majority in Northern Ireland, a part of the UK, voted to Remain! [The majority in Scotland too voted to Remain. England and Wales, the other two parts of the UK, voted to Leave. For details see: https://www.bbc.com/news/politics/eu_referendum/results.]
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Another piece of jargon in this context is the Northern Ireland backstop. This article gives a Q&A on it: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-politics-44615404, 13th Dec. 2018.

The essential issue seems to be that the EU would like Northern Ireland to be part of the EU customs and regulatory system. But such an arrangement is viewed by some in the UK as a threat to Northern Ireland's union with UK. In other words, it is feared that such a special EU status to Northern Ireland which would make it different from other parts of the UK, may lead to Northern Ireland splitting away from the UK, and then perhaps getting united with Republic of Ireland which is what the Republicans/Nationalists want!

The backstop term seems to mean a defined arrangement of how Northern Ireland issue will be handled at Leave time, if Leave happens without a deal between UK and EU (No-Deal Brexit). As of now, UK parliament and the EU don't seem to be agreed on this backstop. But there seems to be some backstop agreed upon by UK negotiators and EU negotiators! I am not clear on this and so don't want to say anything further.

To make the issue even more complex, UK PM Theresa May's government is a minority government dependent on support from a Northern Ireland DUP party who are Unionists and seem to have a public stand that they do NOT want Northern Ireland to be treated specially for EU regulations as compared to rest of UK. I think that is out of their (DUP's) concern for damage EU special treatment to Northern Ireland may cause to the union of Northern Ireland with the rest of the UK.

I offer my prayers to God and best wishes for a harmonious to all (or at least to a vast majority of people concerned) resolution to this issue (with nobody having to face prospect of any special place in hell :-) ).
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Given below is a comment exchange on my Facebook post,  https://www.facebook.com/ravi.s.iyer.7/posts/2410561355827094, associated with this blog post:

In response to comment, "Masterful sweep of a two hundred years history and its impact on unraveling present dilemmas. Thank you.", I wrote: Thank you sir. Glad you liked the post. [Note that perhaps it should be one hundred years history and not two hundred years history.]
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Part 1 of 2, of History of Ireland, around 1 hr, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbJKanTrf8c

Part 2 of 2, of History of Ireland, around 1 hr, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFoxstHK-Kg

Around 52:35 in the 2nd video, the voice-over says: "In 1921 the British had ruled Ireland for seven hundred and fifty four (754) years".