Parsing the backstop: Northern Ireland and the Good Friday Agreement in the Brexit debates

Abstract

This article examines the challenges Brexit poses to the Good Friday Agreement (GFA) in Northern Ireland (NI) by considering how political leaders frame the problem of reconciling Brexit with the GFA. Analyzing the Hansard record of four key debates on the European Union (Withdrawal) Act of 2018 in the House of Commons (the first Withdrawal Agreement), we conclude that the Brexit debate reveals a distinct new threat to the peace accord: its nestedness in British politics. The primary objection MPs raised was that the withdrawal deal would undermine UK sovereignty. In fact, opposition to the multiple sovereignties that the GFA enshrined appeared to be one of the principal reasons for the withdrawal act’s defeat. Second, MPs objected to the way the backstop’s multiple exercise of sovereignty and multilateralism would impact the union between NI and Great Britain, if not its impact on NI itself. Indeed, they tended to decouple discussion of the backstop from previous violence or the peace process. Third, debate was heavily skewed in favor of Unionism, rather than the balanced and plural mechanisms typical of British policy. Fourth, MPs were not coherent in how they understood the GFA. We find that the British Parliament has departed markedly from its established pattern of bilateralism, bipartisanship and deference to government in dealing with Northern Ireland. The consequence is that the British parliament, rather than armed actors in the province, may well undo one of the most successful peace agreements and for reasons that have little to do with NI.