Borders, Brexit and the new UK government/DUP agreement

Paul Adamson in conversation

Paul Adamson

News & Politics, Rss

4.4 • 7 Ratings

🗓️ 1 July 2017

⏱️ 9 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Jonathan Powell, chief of staff to prime minister of Tony Blair and chief British government negotiator on Northern Ireland 1997-2007, talks to Paul Adamson about the impact of Brexit on the border arrangements between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland and the impact of the new political deal between the UK government and the Democratic Unionist Party.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Paul Adamson and I'm in conversation with Jonathan Powell.
0:10.0	Jonathan Powell is the former Chief of Staff of Tony Blair from 1994 to 2007, including Blair's 10-year Premiership.
0:17.0	He was also during those 10 years the British chief negotiator on Northern Ireland. He now
0:22.1	is the founder and director of an NGO dealing with conflict resolution. Now Jonathan, we're going to
0:26.8	talk about obviously Brexit, but also specifically the issue of the so-called Howard border between
0:32.3	Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. And that's one of the key issues that Mr. Barnier is
0:36.8	focusing on in the Article 15 negotiations, as you know, alongside budget and citizens' rights.
0:41.3	Well, let's go back to the beginning. You were intimately involved in negotiations leading up to the peace agreement.
0:46.3	What change as a result of the Good Friday Agreement in terms of border and border management between the two countries?
0:52.6	Well, at the worst of the troubles, the violence was going on for those 30 years,
0:56.1	the border was almost completely blocked.
0:58.4	We put a series of concrete blocks on all the small roads crossing in.
1:02.0	Remember, it's nearly 300 miles long, making it extraordinarily inconvenient for people
1:05.8	and really separating the two areas off because we had to,
1:08.9	because of the terrorists coming backwards and forwards across the border. And the point about the Good Friday Agreement and the peace process that it
1:15.2	was part of was to make that border irrelevant to really remove it. If you go now to Northern Ireland,
1:20.9	you won't be able to tell where the border it is. Many of these rural roads cross the border
1:24.4	several times and you'll see no sign of it. And it allows, crucially,
1:29.0	to solve the question of identity. The issue of Northern Ireland was about Catholics in
1:33.2	Northern Ireland wanted to feel they were Irish and the unionists in Northern Ireland wanted to feel
1:38.0	they were British. With the border irrelevant, they could do that. We were both in the EU, we had
1:42.4	the same rules for everything. The border was not relevant. You could feel Irish. We solved that issue of identity.
	...

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