Northern Ireland is Boris Johnson’s new victim – Gwynne Dyer

Peace in Northern Ireland has lasted for 23 years, achieved after a civil war lasting thirty years and in which 3,700 people have died: but nothing lasts forever. From 2 April on the streets of Belfast violent crowds of young people attack each other, Protestants against Catholics. And it’s all Boris Johnson’s fault. The British Prime Minister had not talked about it at the time, but his campaign to free the UK from the clutches of the European Union (Brexit) was only the first phase of his plan. Phase two is to free England from the clutches of the United Kingdom.

In 2016, a narrow majority of Brits had voted yes in the referendum to leave the EU, but both Scotland and Northern Ireland had largely voted to stay. This kicked off phase two, as Johnson and the brexiter they were effectively forcing both Northern Ireland and Scotland to choose between England and Europe. In both cases the answer could be “Europe”.

For Scotland it’s a simple choice. As a nation of five million, with no major historical trauma or enemies, it would probably be welcome if it wanted to rejoin the EU. If the Scottish national party (SNP) wins a majority in local elections in May, its leader, Nicola Sturgeon, promises to hold a second independence referendum “in the first half of the next (Scottish) legislature”.

One peaceful process and the other not
The last referendum on Scotland’s independence, in 2014, ended 55 to 45 in favor of staying in the UK, but it’s hard to say how a second would end. Many Scots are deeply resentful of being dragged out of the EU by the British, but many would also be dissatisfied with finding a border with England. Whatever happens, it would still be a completely peaceful process.

Not so for Northern Ireland.

The “Norn Iron”, as they call it there, was created exactly a century ago at the request of the local Protestant majority, while the rest of the island gained its independence as the (mainly Catholic) Republic of Ireland. Northern Ireland has been a sore point ever since, with its Catholic minority always aspiring to reunite with the republic.

The Irish Republican Army (IRA), the main instrument of that desire for reunification with the Republic of Ireland, waged a long armed struggle against local Protestants and the British government, but the latest round of troubles (the violence that began in the late sixties) ended on April 10, 1998 with the Good Friday peace agreement. Unfortunately, Brexit and Johnson have made it in vain.

The agreement imposed the sharing of power between the political parties of the north, Protestants and Catholics, while border controls between the two Irish were abolished. Northern Catholics could even claim Irish citizenship if they so desired.

The faults of Brexit
It worked because most people were tired of endless killings and because the deal removed some important factors that bothered Catholics, most notably the “hard” border, but mostly because the higher Catholic birth rate would bring the north to eventually have a Catholic majority, at which point reunification would take place through a peaceful vote.

Brexit marked the end of all of this. When the UK left the EU, a border would reappear somewhere, as the Republic of Ireland didn’t think about leaving the EU. Establishing the new cargo and immigration controls in the most obvious place, on the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, would have wrecked the Good Friday agreement and likely the bombings and shootings of the United States would have resumed. Anger. So Johnson made it in spite of the Protestants, moving the new border into the Irish Sea, between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

That’s how he got a Brexit deal with the EU, but to postpone the revolt of the loyalists (Northern Irish Protestants) against the new border, he lied and said it wouldn’t work as a border. There would be no customs checks, no paperwork, nothing like that – and those gullible people listened to him. Now they have woken up.

For practical purposes, Northern Ireland is still in the EU, with a customs border between it and the rest of the UK. Loyalists feel abandoned – and this while Northern Ireland’s Catholic population has outnumbered the Protestant population.

Now the loyalist militias are restarting the war in the streets, attacking Catholics in the hope of avoiding sliding towards the republic. Before it is all over many people could die, but the slide is probably unstoppable now. And Johnson will certainly not throw himself into a ditch to stop it.

Only Wales remains. It’s hard to imagine it disappearing 750 years after the British conquered it, but Boris Johnson is a universal solvent. Plaid Cymru, the Welsh nationalist party, promises an independence referendum by 2026 if it wins next month’s elections. Will Boris make a clean sweep?