Letter: An inoperable Good Friday Agreement is not in Northern Ireland's interest

There is nothing specifically stated in the Good Friday Agreement GFA) that ‘Thou shalt not erect a tangible border on the island of Ireland’.

The DUP took advantage of this in championing Brexit in the expectation that a border would necessarily be created.However, in the spirit of the GFA there would never be a tangible border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland (RoI) or, if/when NI leaves the UK to join the RoI, between the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, other than the natural salt water boundary.Joint UK-RoI membership of the EU was an essential element in formulating and securing the GFA.

It was not envisaged that any constituent(s) of the GFA institutions would leave the EU with or without the other constituents. The possibility of a trade/customs border, or any other borderbeyond what already existed, did not occur to the drafters of the agreement.

The GFA envisages the UK, NI and the RoI continuing to “develop still further the unique relationship between their peoples and the close cooperation between their countries as friendly neighbours and as partners in the EU”. Relative to the GFA the Brexit movement, referendum and enactment were out of order, invalid, and necessitated a trade/customs border.

Starkly, either:

a) The GFA is no longer operable.

or b) The UK must re-join the EU.

An inoperable GFA might suit the interests of the DUP and dissident republicans, neither of which supported the GFA, but it is not in the better interests of the majority of people in NI and the RoI.

Short of the UK as a whole, dominated by the overwhelmingly large population of England, returning to the EU, Scotland and NI, whose majority populations voted to remain in the EU, could opt out of England’s Brexit decision. If England and Wales then opt to remain out of the EU there would need to be a trade/customs border on the island of GB and in the Irish Sea. The UK as a parliamentary union, albeit devolved, could not function in that scenario. Nor can it function in the present scenario unless there is some Protocol/Windsor-Framework type of arrangement.

If the DUP and other unionists don’t accept this and return to Stormont it will be imposed by joint direct rule from Westminster and Dublin, the joint guarantors of the GFA. The DUP will have lost their argument and will have deprived NI of the benefits of devolved government.

Dennis Golden, Strabane