Politics
“In such an uncertain time, voters are looking for strong voices”, goes on Francis Campbell, deputy principal of St Mary’s University, in Twickenham, London. In commenting on the outcome of the election in Northern Ireland, he points out: “The European Union offered an intellectual umbrella that protected the Good Friday Agreement that both Catholics and Protestants had voted for, and that was protected by the British and Irish governments. The border was there for safety only, but there was a free flow in terms of customs and immigration”. “The beauty of that agreement, to which we owe nearly twenty years of relative peace, lie in the fact it encompassed both dimensions, the British and the Irish ones”, Campbell goes on. “After Brexit and the reopening of a border, the problem now is how to prevent the British dimension taking the upper hand, thus threatening the existing balance”. The expert and diplomat points to the irony of a situation in which “the European Union might have 1.7 million of his citizens living in a United Kingdom that has parted from the EU with Brexit, because anyone born in Northern Ireland is entitled to have Irish citizenship, and therefore, European citizenship”, and points out that “56% of the Northern Irish population voted to stay in the European Union but will find themselves out of it, with Brexit”.
