Why violent riots have broken out in Northern Ireland

LONDON – Tensions have once again erupted in Northern Ireland as British and Irish leaders try to preserve a long-standing peace agreement in the region.

Violence has hit the streets of Belfast last week and dozens of police officers have been injured amid petrol bomb attacks, vehicles and rocks.

Renewed concern comes when Ireland and the United Kingdom marked the 23rd anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, a historic truce that ended three decades of sectarian violence.

Now the hostilities are over when the leaders fight to agree new trade rules between the UK and the European Union without undermining that agreement. The UK, which includes Northern Ireland, left the EU in 2020, while the Republic of Ireland remains a member of the union.

British and Irish prime ministers, as well as Northern Irish lawmakers from across the political division, have condemned the violence and called for calm.

What happens now?

Recent riots on the streets of Belfast have seen mainly pro-British Protestant unionist groups clash with predominantly Catholic Irish Republicans.

The origins of the protests have been attributed in part to the resentment of the British loyalist community of the Northern Ireland Protocol, which is part of the treaty that saw the UK leave the EU.

However, the recent police decision not to prosecute Irish Republican Sinn Fein lawmakers for breaching Covid’s rules has also been cited, to attend the funeral of former Irish Republican Army member Bobby Storey, who he lit the steel box.

Paramilitary groups and criminal factions have taken advantage of discontent to provoke sectarian violence. Many of the detainees have been minors, some as young as 13, and Northern Ireland’s children’s commissioner, Koulla Yiasouma, has said that adults who persuade young people to commit violence and vandalism amount to “child abuse”. ”.

Former Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern told CNBC on Monday that tensions had been steady since last year, but that the peace commitments of politicians on both sides meant it was unlikely to become an issue in long term.

However, he expressed some concern that the “march season”, a period of regular marches by Protestant groups between April and August, will be more feverish in the wake of recent clashes.

How has Brexit affected Northern Ireland?

The Good Friday Agreement, a pair of agreements signed on 10 April 1998, put an end to almost three decades of sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland, known as The Problems.

The fact that both the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland were members of the EU was also important and allowed for the blurring of the borders between the two.

However, the UK’s exit from the EU has been accused of undermining the Good Friday Agreement. It orders a “maritime border of Ireland”, between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK, or a “hard border” separating Northern Ireland from the Republic of Ireland, which would infuriate Irish nationalists.

The Northern Ireland Protocol creates the former, a distinction between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom, and angers the unionist community, which identifies itself as British.

Before winning the election, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Boris Johnson, swore that no government of his would accept any agreement with the EU that saw a customs border for trade across the Irish Sea. However, he relinquished that promise within weeks of taking office, leaving unionists deprived of their liberty and betrayed by London.

Leaders in the UK and the EU continue to finalize the application of trade rules under the Northern Ireland Protocol, although the Financial Times reported on Sunday that both sides were optimistic about progress.

Although not yet fully implemented, goods arriving in Northern Ireland were subject to EU customs controls for the first time in January.

Ahern suggested that British and European lawmakers will reach an agreement on the border issue, which has led to disruption to trade and the supply chain, but that it may not be enough to put the elf back in the bottle in the short term. time limit.

“The million-dollar question is, ‘Will this by itself eliminate the perception that is now rooted in the loyalists that there is still a border in the Irish Sea, that there is this mystical line in the Irish Sea?’ That’s what worries me the most, ”Ahern said.

How will peace be restored?

Among the common institutions covered by the Good Friday Agreement was the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference. However, Ahern stressed that the group has not met since the Johnson governments and Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin took office.

“I see that both the government (in Ireland) and the UK government are saying that we need to implement the Good Friday Agreement … But the only mechanism of the Agreement that is the responsibility of both is the Intergovernmental Conference British-Irish, and they have not met since either government was elected, ”he said.

British and European leaders are now vying to establish a way to implement the Protocol that will appease both sides of Northern Ireland’s sectarian division.

DBRS Morningstar, a global credit rating agency, said colder layers are likely to prevail, but the Irish Protocol is unlikely to be reworked fundamentally, as it is the only available alternative to a hard border across the island of Ireland. .

“The temporary extension of post-Brexit check waivers is likely to gain time. However, permanent solutions will need to be found to reduce or eliminate trade frictions along the Irish Sea without compromising the EU’s single market. “said Jason Graffan and Nichola James said in a recent note.

“If these challenges are not addressed or if relations are mismanaged, long-standing security risks will persist on the island of Ireland.”