Letter: Unionism must abandon commitment to Brexit in order to overcome Irish sea border

A letter from R G McDowell:

The majority of unionism has agreed on returning to Stormont. But now removing the Irish Sea border is in nobody’s in tray in London, writes R G McDowell

Unionism seems to once again be united in an assessment that the Irish Sea border still exists and that it remains a constitutional crisis.

The problem with having returned to the Northern Ireland Executive is that everybody outside of unionism now sees the problem as resolved, with the two governments even taking credit for it as a positive achievement.

Removing the Irish Sea border is in absolutely nobody’s in tray in London, Dublin, Brussels or Washington. Remaining out of the executive was the only non-violent way that unionism could force this issue onto anybody’s agenda and deprive the arrangement of legitimacy.

Letter to the editor

While I personally wouldn’t have returned to government on current terms, it does seem to be the policy of the majority of unionism. The only pathway I see to removing the Irish Sea border while remaining in the executive is either if Scotland becomes independent, which no unionist wants, or if the whole UK returns to the EU.

With this in mind, if the UUP and DUP are going to remain committed to executive participation then I think the DUP in particular need to abandon their lifelong commitment to Brexit and become advocates of the UK rejoining the EU.

This of course brings its own problems around sovereignty but if NI is not to be included in a full Brexit then unionism would be better trying to cooperate with those who want to reject and undo the Brexit referendum, especially within the Labour movement, by helping to make Northern Ireland an excuse to ignore the Brexit vote and move the UK back in that direction.

Either unionism must fight an Irish Sea border which is incompatible with being in the Northern Ireland Executive under current terms or it must abandon Brexit.

Boris Johnson’s partial Brexit - the terms of which seem like they will be largely honoured under any likely shade of Westminster government – mean you cannot be both a Brexiteer and a unionist.

R G McDowell, Belfast BT5