Tag Archives: Northern Ireland Office

The impact of Brexit on UK policy on Northern Ireland

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Conor Kelly and Etain Tannam argue that Brexit reversed much of the progress of past decades in Northern Ireland by signifying a return by the UK government to a unilateral approach that prioritised traditional sovereignty in both its relations with the Irish government and with devolved governments. They conclude that Brexit has deeply destabilised the political settlement in Northern Ireland.

In the first 5 months of 2023, Northern Ireland was rarely far from our front pages as the Windsor Framework was negotiated between the UK government and European Commission in February, and the world’s media descended on Belfast for the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement’s 25th-anniversary celebrations in April. Yet, the Stormont institutions remain suspended, and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) has thus far refused to accept the Windsor Framework as the basis for returning to power-sharing.

To understand Brexit’s impact on the government’s policy, one must examine if joint UK-Irish EU membership between 1973 and 2016 impacted UK policy to Northern Ireland. We argue that while the Europeanisation of UK government policy towards Northern Ireland can be overstated, it had an indirect impact on the peace process by influencing the strategy of its key architect, former Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) leader John Hume. In particular the EU’s model of  institutionalised cooperation and consensual policy-making has echoes in the 1998 Agreement. Thus, the process of de-Europeanisation since 2016 has had a severely negative effect on political stability within Northern Ireland and UK-Irish relations.

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‘Taking the border out of politics’ – the Northern Ireland referendum of March 1973

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In 1973, the UK government organised the country’s first referendum, on the subject of whether or not Northern Ireland should remain part of the UK. Now, as Brexit and its potential consequences make another border poll look like an increasing possibility, David Torrance looks back on the poll, its background, and its later constitutional significance.

Introduction 

The first constitutional referendum in the history of the United Kingdom took place on 8 March 1973. It was held nearly four years after the beginning of ‘The Troubles’ – a sharp deterioration in the security and political situation in Northern Ireland. 

What became known as the ‘border poll’ (although it was also called a ‘referendum’ or ‘plebiscite’, no one could quite agree on terminology) emerged as a means by which to ‘take the border out of politics’, or so it was hoped. In discussions with the Government of Northern Ireland (NIG) on 22 March 1972, the UK government proposed transferring responsibility for law and order from Belfast to London, phasing out internment, and periodic plebiscites.

The last two were, in principle, acceptable to the NIG, but an erosion of its ‘transferred’ powers under the Government of Ireland Act 1920 was not. The Prime Minister of Northern Ireland (Brian Faulkner) and his Cabinet later resigned, and on 30 March the Parliament of Northern Ireland – known as ‘Stormont’ – was prorogued and Direct Rule from Westminster introduced for the first time since 1921.

The referendum announcement

Speaking in the Commons on 24 March 1972, Prime Minister Edward Heath said:

‘We… propose in due course to invite Parliament to provide for a system of regular plebiscites in Northern Ireland about the Border, the first to be held as soon as practicable in the near future and others at intervals of a substantial period of years thereafter.’

In effect, Heath was proposing to transfer the principle of ‘consent’ from the prorogued Parliament of Northern Ireland (enshrined in the Ireland Act 1949) to its people, ‘the Border’ representing a proxy for a much broader constitutional question.  Continue reading →