We have become careless about the peace process in Northern Ireland and we are now paying the price.
The carelessness started with Brexit. The Brexiteers’ dismissal of concerns that it would threaten the Good Friday Agreement as merely part of Project Fear have been proved to be wrong — as too was their lazy assumption that any issues could be dealt with by some easy technological fix at the Irish border.
That carelessness was compounded by the DUP, who defied the views of a clear majority in Northern Ireland to support a hard Brexit. They may have hoped the result would be to reimpose a hard border to cement Northern Ireland’s place in the Union but, predictably, all it did was to galvanise nationalists and the centre ground in opposition.
The result was the government’s decision to shift custom controls from the land border in Ireland to a line down the Irish Sea without any real thought as to how it would work in practice.
And the carelessness didn’t stop there. Because Northern Ireland has remained part of the single market, the EU now has a much more significant role here than it did pre-Brexit, but it hasn’t acquired either the political nous or diplomatic agility to match. Dealing with the complexities of a region which are in different constitutional and economic identities would test any administration. Doing so by remote control from Brussels is a form of denial.
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But Brexit’s destabilising effect hasn’t stopped there. Because it has been imposed against the will of the majority of people in Northern Ireland it has also fast-forwarded the pressure for a poll on Irish unity. Nationalists believe history and demographics are on their side and that has fed a certain degree of triumphalism on their part and a corresponding paranoia on the part of unionists.
And that is the context for the row over the funeral of the IRA man Bobby Storey. Gerry Adams and the late Martin McGuinness always emphasised the need to keep republicanism united in the transition from violence and no doubt that will have played a part in the decision to organise the paramilitary funeral of one of their closest colleagues.
What that ignored, of course, was not just the Covid-19 restrictions, but the feelings of those members of the community in Northern Ireland whose relatives were killed by the IRA. That careless disregard has crystallised the feeling among unionists that they are being bounced into a decision about the future and that sense of alienation is what was being played on by loyalist thugs in recent days.
It is long past time for Westminster to start paying attention again.
The Agreement was never a perfect solution to the issues in Northern Ireland because, given the fundamental differences, there is no perfect solution. What it provided was a way of managing those differences, which have grown rather than diminished since it was signed.
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Because in Northern Ireland today there are three traditions, not just two: unionist; nationalist; and those who who do not identify as primarily British or Irish who now make up about 20 per cent of the electorate. That means there is no longer a majority for an exclusively unionist, or exclusively nationalist outcome. Instead we have become a hybrid: part British, part Irish, part European, part global but primarily Northern Irish.
The 19th century view of sovereignty, therefore, is out of date. Its one dimensional zero sum game view of win/lose politics no longer applies — and the Agreement was actually ahead of its time in recognising that. It said that people in Northern Ireland could be British or Irish or both.
We now need to follow through on that “both” - and that “we” applies equally to the two governments, the EU and the local parties. We need to work for consensus, not conflict — and we need to be much more careful of each other’s views and perceptions.
My oldest son, when he was four, used to exclaim when anything got broken that “it did itself”. If the peace process breaks, as it could, then it won’t be because it did it itself, but because of our collective carelessness. It is time to get a grip.
Tom Kelly was the prime minister’s official spokesman from 2001 to 2007 and is a former director of communications at the Northern Ireland Office