Notes
Bill Clinton, “‘Don’t turn Inward’: Bill Clinton urges Britain to stay in the European Union”, New Statesman, 9 June 2016: http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2016/06/dont-turn-inward-bill-clinton-urges-britain-stay-european-union [2 August 2016]. Bertie Ahern, “EU has brought us decades of peace – what Europe needs now is reform, not a Brexit”, Irish Independent, 1 June 2016: http://www.independent.ie/business/brexit/eu-has-brought-us-decades-of-peace-what-europe-needs-now-is-reform-not-a-brexit-34763250.html [2 August 2016].
Lesley-Anne McKeown, “EU Referendum: Tony Blair and John Major warn Brexit could lead to break-up of UK”, The Independent, 9 June 2016: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/eu-referendum-tony-blair-and-john-major-warn-brexit-could-lead-to-break-up-of-uk-a7072681.html [2 August 2016].
The Alliance Party, Northern Ireland’s fifth largest party overall, will not be mentioned in this paper. This nonsectarian party is pro-Europe.
Hansard, Parliamentary Debates, 9 June 2015, col. 1067, col. 1152. The four Sinn Féin MPs do not take part in debates and refuse to sit in the House of Commons according to their abstention policy. Yet, they would certainly have supported the amendment.
The 2015 Northern Ireland General Election Survey carried out by Jonathan Tonge has shown that these divisions are even more relevant today, particularly in voting terms: “Communal divisions between unionism and nationalism remain as acute as ever in voting terms. The relationship between the percentage of Protestants in a constituency voting for Unionist parties and Catholics voting for Nationalist parties remains as strong as in previous elections” (http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk/projects?ref=ES/L007320/1 [22 December 2016]).
Joanne McEvoy, The Politics of Northern Ireland, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2008, p. 8.
According to the 2011 Census, 42 % of the population of Northern Ireland were Protestant whereas 41 % identified as Catholic. The 2011 Census also showed that: (1) 53% of Catholics considered themselves as “Irish only” and 68 % of Protestants as “British only”; (2) 81 % of people with a British only national identity “were or had been brought up as Protestants while 94 % with an Irish only national identity were or had been brought up as Catholics. Almost three-fifths of those with a Northern Irish only national identity belonged to or had been brought up as Catholics (58 per cent), while 36 per cent belonged to or had been brought up in Protestant denominations” (http://www.ninis2.nisra.gov.uk/public/census2011analysis/ [23 December 2016]).
Joanne McEvoy, op. cit., p. 8.
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, “The Good Friday Agreement and Today”, http://www.dfa.ie/our-role-policies/northern-ireland/the-good-friday-agreement-and-today/ [4 August 2016].
Devolution was suspended between February 2000 and May 2000, twice in 2001 for a day, and for almost five years from October 2002 to May 2007. This last interruption was due to the refusal of the UUP to share power with Sinn Féin following allegations that an IRA spy-ring was operating within Stormont.
Valérie Peyronel, “Northern Ireland: Devolution as an Electoral Issue in the 2015 UK General Election”, Revue Française de Civilisation Britannique [Online], XX-3, 2015: http://rfcb.revues.org/647 ; DOI : 10.4000/rfcb.647. [2 August 2016].
Vincent Boland and Gonzalo Viña, “UK terrorism threat from Northern Ireland raised to ‘substantial’”, Financial Times, 11 May 2016: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ff52f406-1795-11e6-b197-a4af20d5575e.html#axzz4GBG6TNaK [2 August 2016].
See: http://www.cain.ulst.ac.uk/issues/violence/deaths2015draft.htm; http://www.cain.ulst.ac.uk/issues/violence/deaths2016draft.htm [23 December 2016].
Danske Bank, “NI EU Opinion Poll”, 5 August 2015 (https://danskebank.co.uk/en-gb/About-the-bank/Bank-in-brief/Economic-Research/Pages/NI-EU-Opinion-Poll.aspx [23 December 2016]).
Sile O’Connor, Lee McGowan, “EuroVision: Attitudes towards the European Union”, Research Update, ARK Northern Ireland Social and Political Archive, 2003, pp. 2-3.
Bill White, “EU referendum: How will Northern Ireland unionists and nationalists vote on June 23?”, The Belfast Telegraph, 22 February 2016: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/columnists/bill-white/eu-referendum-how-will-northern-ireland-unionists-and-nationalists-vote-on-june-23-34475000.html [2 August 2016].
Prime Time Special – Ireland's Call”, RTE News, November 2015: http://www.rte.ie/news/primetime/2015/1104/739633-prime-time-cross-border-poll-test-page/ [6 August 2016].
Paul Mitchell et al., “Extremist Outbidding in Ethnic Party Systems Is Not Inevitable: Tribune Parties in Northern Ireland”, Political Science and Political Economy Working Paper, N°6, 2006, p. 10. This means that the party system in Northern Ireland is based on the following constitutional cleavage: support for a united Ireland versus support for maintenance of the Union with the UK. According to Evans and Duffy, this party system is “plausibly represented as two systems, in which party competition occurs within nationalist and unionist blocs” (Geoffrey Evans and Mary Duffy, “Beyond the Sectarian Divide: The Social Bases and Political Consequences of Nationalist and Unionist Party Competition in Northern Ireland’, British Journal of Political Science, 27, 1997, p. 47).
Katy Hayward, “Between Belfast and Brussels… How ‘Europeanised’ are political parties in Northern Ireland, and why might it matter?”, 9 July 2010 (https://sspswqub.wordpress.com/2010/07/09/between-belfast-and-brussels-how-%E2%80%98europeanised%E2%80%99-are-political-parties-in-northern-ireland-and-why-might-it-matter/ [24 December 2016]).
Brigid Laffan, “These Islands and the European Dimension” in Ben Tonra and Eilís Ward (eds.), Ireland in International Affairs: Interests, Institutions and Identities, Dublin: Institute of Public Administration, 2002, p. 54.
Gladys Ganiel, “’Battling in Brussels’: The DUP and the European Union” in Katy Hayward and Mary C. Murphy (eds.), The Europeanization of Party Politics in Ireland, North and South, New York: Routledge, 2010, pp. 159-172.
New Unionism aimed “to make a new deal with nationalism” by taking into account the contemporary domestic and international context (Mary C. Murphy, “Pragmatic Politics: the Ulster Unionist Party and the European Union” in Katy Hayward and Mary C. Murphy (eds.), The Europeanization of Party Politics in Ireland, North and South, op. cit., p. 175).
John Hume was a founding member of the SDLP and the SDLP leader between 1979 and 2001.
P. J. McLoughlin, “The SDLP and the Europeanization of the Northern Ireland Problem” in Katy Hayward and Mary C. Murphy (eds.), op. cit., p. 200.
This prize was awarded jointly to John Hume and David Trimble (leader of the UUP between 1995 and 2005).
The 1993 Downing Street Declaration thus stated that The Taoiseach and the Prime Minister considered “that the development of Europe will, of itself, require new approaches to serve interests common to both parts of the island of Ireland, and to Ireland and the United Kingdom as partners in the European Union” (“Joint Declaration on Peace: The Downing Street Declaration”, Wednesday 15 December 1993: http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/events/peace/docs/dsd151293.htm [26 December 2016]). The 19995 Framework Documents stressed that cross-border cooperation, and more precisely North/South institutions, could contribute to solving the Northern Irish problem and that many EU-related issues could be addressed more effectively on an all-Ireland basis (“The Framework Documents”, 22 February 1995: http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/events/peace/docs/fd22295.htm [26 December 2016]).
Agnès Maillot, “Sinn Féin’s Approach to the EU: Still More ‘Critical’ than ‘Engaged?’” in Katy Hayward and Mary C. Murphy (eds.), op. cit., p. 143.
Ibid., p. 150.
Sinn Féin, “Putting Ireland First”, EU Manifesto, May 2014, p. 31.
In the last May 2016 election to the Northern Ireland Assembly, the DUP and Sinn Féin won the most seats (37 and 28 seats respectively). The UUP got 16 seats, the SDLP 12 (and the Alliance 8). The Assembly currently has 108 seats.
The DUP campaigned for a vote to leave like Traditional Unionist Voice and UKIP while Sinn Fein, the SDLP, the UUP, the Alliance Party and the Green Party backed the Remain campaign.
Colum Eastwood, “Brexit is biggest threat to economy”, SDLP, 21 January 2016:
http://www.sdlp.ie/news/2016/brexit-is-biggest-threat-to-economy/ [5 August 2016].
Declan Kearney (Sinn Fein National Chairperson), “Brexit from Europe would be disastrous for Ireland”, Sinn Fein, 15 April 2016: http://www.sinnfein.ie/contents/39304 [5 August 2016].
Alasdair McDonnell, “McDonnell Brexit Address”, SDLP, 10 June 2016: http://www.sdlp.ie/news/2016/mcdonnell-brexit-address/ [5 August 2016].
See the next section.
Alasdair McDonnell, “McDonnell Brexit Address”, op. cit. See also: Declan Kearney, “Brexit from Europe would be disastrous for Ireland”, op. cit.
“Sinn Féin and SDLP warn of consequences of hard border”, The Irish News, 20 June 2016: http://www.irishnews.com/news/2016/06/20/news/sinn-fe-in-and-the-sdlp-warn-of-the-consequences-of-a-hard-border-with-just-days-left-before-brexit-vote--570273/ [6 August 2016].
John Manley, “Custom checks after Brexit would ‘devastate’ cross-border trade”, The Irish News, 2 March 2016: http://www.irishnews.com/news/2016/03/02/news/custom-checks-after-brexit-would-devastate-cross-border-trade-436361/ [6 August 2016].
Declan Kearney, “Brexit from Europe would be disastrous for Ireland”, op. cit.
British Irish Council, “Annex A: Draft clauses / schedules for incorporation in British legislation”, Constitutional Issues, Section: Agreement reached in the Multi-Party negotiations: http://www.britishirishcouncil.org/agreement-reached-multi-party-negotiations/constitutional-issues [12 August 2016].
Such a poll seems quite unlikely today. Two polls carried out in September 2016 showed that the majority of people in Northern Ireland were opposed to a border poll. See: Mark Devenport, “More than half in Northern Ireland ‘oppose border poll’”, BBC, 8 September 2016 (http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-37307783 [27 December 2016]). Jonny Bell, “Survey: Majority say ‘No’ to Ireland border poll and ‘Yes’ to staying in UK”, The Belfast Telegraph, 28 September 2016 (http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/survey-majority-say-no-to-ireland-border-poll-and-yes-to-staying-in-uk-35086513.html [27 December 2016]).
“Ulster Unionists give evidence to Northern Ireland Affairs Committee regarding European Referendum”, UUP, 7 March 2016: http://uup.org/news/4156/Ulster-Unionists-give-evidence-to-Northern-Ireland-Affairs-Committee-regarding-European-Referendum#.V7SHhvmLSM8 [7 August 2016].
UUP, “MakeItWork”, Northern Ireland Assembly Manifesto 2016, p. 5.
“Ulster Unionists give evidence to Northern Ireland Affairs Committee regarding European Referendum”, op. cit. The DUP also gave its members a free vote on this issue (see: “DUP confirms it will campaign for Brexit in Leave/Remain referendum”, The Belfast Telegraph, 20 February 2016 http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/dup-confirms-it-will-campaign-for-brexit-in-leaveremain-referendum-34470806.html [26 December 2016]).
Arlene Foster, “It is right to vote to leave the EU and to take back control of our future”, DUP, 17 June 2016: http://www.mydup.com/news/article/it-is-right-to-vote-to-leave-the-eu-and-to-take-back-control-of-our-future [7 August 2016].
Arlene Foster, “It’s time we took back the levers of power from EU bureaucrats”, Belfast Telegraph, 17 June 2016: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/news-analysis/arlene-foster-its-time-we-took-back-the-levers-of-power-from-eu-bureaucrats-34808294.html [7 August 2016].
Simon Cunningham, “Arlene Foster’s Brexit comments ‘irresponsible’, opponents blast”, The Irish News, 16 May 2016: http://www.irishnews.com/news/politicalnews/2016/05/16/news/arlene-foster-s-brexit-comments-irresponsible-opponents-blast-520924/ [8 August 2016].
“EU Referendum: Theresa May predicts Irish border controls if UK pulls out of European Union”, BBC, 20 June 2016: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-politics-36587809 [8 August 2016].
Richard Wheeler, “NI Secretary Theresa Villiers: ‘Brexit no affect on peace process’”, Irish Examiner, 18 April 2016: http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/ni-secretary-theresa-villiers-brexit-no-affect-on-peace-process-393552.html [8 August 2016].
I have chosen not to mention the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). The latter is related to the Peace Process but is institutionally distinct from EU membership.
“Joint Declaration on Peace: The Downing Street Declaration”, Wednesday 15 December 1993: http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/events/peace/docs/dsd151293.htm [12 August 2016].
British-Irish Council, British-Irish Agreement: https://www.britishirishcouncil.org/about/british-irish-agreement [12 August 2016].
The NSMC had been set up in 1998 to develop consultation, cooperation and action between the Northern Ireland Executive and the Government of the Republic on all-Ireland and cross-border issues.
Northern Ireland Office, The Belfast Agreement, p. 16: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/136652/agreement.pdf [12 August 2016].
See for example: Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, Northern Ireland and the EU Referendum, First Report of Session 2016-2017, House of Commons, p. 28; The Centre for Cross-Border Studies & Co-operation Ireland, “The UK Referendum on Membership of the EU: Potential Constitutional Consequences”, EU Referendum Briefing Papers, Briefing Paper 2, 2016, pp. 2-4.
Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, op. cit., p. 29.
Ibid.
Christine Bell, “Brexit, Northern Ireland and British-Irish Relations”, European Futures, 26 March 2016: http://www.europeanfutures.ed.ac.uk/article-3093 [14 August 2016].
Lee McGowan, “Could Brexit disturb the peace in Northern Ireland?”, The Telegraph, 17 February 2016: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/eureferendum/12161332/Could-Brexit-disturb-the-peace-in-Northern-Ireland.html [3 August 2016].
The multi-level governance theory, which was popularized by Gary Marks in the 1980s, stressed the complex network of interactions at the European level, insisting on the role played by the following institutions in the European decision-making process: the supranational actors (the EU institutions), the national state institutions and the sub-national governments.
Diána Haase, Filipa Azevedo, “Northern Ireland PEACE programme”, Fact Sheets on the European Union, June 2016: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/atyourservice/en/displayFtu.html?ftuId=FTU_5.1.9.html [12 August 2016].
Ibid.
See: SEUPB – What is the INTERREG IVA Programme?: http://www.seupb.eu/programmes2007-2013/interregivaprogramme/interregoverview.aspx [14 August 2016].
European Commission, “Northern Ireland Task Force”: http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/en/policy/themes/northern-ireland-peace-programme/ [23 December 2016].
David Phinnemore et al., To Remain or Leave? Northern Ireland and the EU Referendum, EU Debate NI – Briefing Paper, 2015, Centre for Democracy and Peace Building, p. 10.
Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, op. cit., p. 28.
Bernard Ryan, “At the Borders of Sovereignty: Nationality and Immigration Policy in an Independent Scotland”, Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Law, vol. 28, N° 2, 2014, pp. 158-159.
Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, op. cit., p. 26.
Melanie Gower, “The Common Travel Area, and the special status of Irish nationals in UK law”, Briefing Paper N°7661, House of Commons Library, 15 July 2016, pp.8-9. Colm Keena, “Brexit may not impact common travel area, expert claims”, The Irish Times, 6 July 2016 (http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/uk/brexit-may-not-impact-common-travel-area-expert-claims-1.2711557 [26 December 2016]).
Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, op. cit., p. 27.
See: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A11997D%2FPRO%2F03 [14 August 2016].
Melanie Gower, op. cit., p. 13.
Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, op. cit., p. 27.
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