Peace at risk in Northern Ireland

Siobhan Fenton
Independent.co.uk

Is the government intent on alienating Northern
Ireland? asked Siobhan Fenton. You’d think so
from its total lack of concern, ever since the Brexit
vote, for the way its actions affect local sensibilities.
This is a region striving to cement peace after
decades of sectarian conflict between Protestant
Unionists, who want to stay part of Britain, and
Catholic Nationalists, who want to reunite with
the Republic of Ireland. Yet only last month Communities
Secretary Sajid Javid was suggesting that
all public sector workers in the U.K. be made to
swear an oath to British values. In Northern Ireland
few things could be more divisive—except
perhaps the erection of a “deeply controversial
physical border” between the North and the
Republic, which will remain a member of the
European Union after the U.K. leaves the bloc.
Yet some six months after the Brexit vote, we’ve
still not been told whether such a border is in the
cards. And now Theresa May looks set to push on
with plans to withdraw from the European Convention
on Human Rights, even though that would
threaten the human rights upon which the North’s
peace deal was founded. “In her bid to make her
party the champion of Little Englanders,” May is
putting Northern Ireland’s fragile peace at risk.