Jonathan Freedland (Peace in Ireland is precious. How did we forget that so quickly?, 5 October) provides a powerful reminder that it was the UK and Ireland’s membership of the EU that meant that “the border between them could fade to invisibility”.
The key to the Good Friday agreement was that it enabled the citizens of Northern Ireland to identify as Irish or British. Allowing Northern Ireland to stay within the single market and customs union would change the balance of that arrangement, but not the principle.
Northern Ireland would be economically closer to the Republic while remaining politically integrated within the UK. The maintenance of the current arrangements would in turn minimise calls for a border poll.
The very spirit of the Good Friday agreement therefore leads to a customs border in the Irish Sea as the only way of simultaneously recognising the 2016 vote, the “gentle erasure of the physical border between north and south” and the place of Northern Ireland within the UK. Isn’t that obvious, or am I missing something?
Jeremy Waxman
Canterbury
• Having spent a year volunteering at a peace centre in Northern Ireland in 1975-76, I completely concur with Jonathan Freedland.
I spent time in Ballymurphy and on the Shankill Road, and remember the dedication of priests and community activists who tried to make a difference by encouraging cross-community links. The current government proposals show a reckless disregard of the hard-won and fragile peace there. It has been harrowing to watch the recent BBC series Spotlight on the Troubles, with footage of bombings, shootings and failed negotiations.
This must serve as a timely reminder that it is critical not to underestimate the risks of conflict resurfacing in the foreseeable future. The current plans include arrangements in Northern Ireland being decided by the DUP, who opposed the Good Friday agreement.
However convenient it is to those in power at present to forget recent history, this amnesia poses a risk to the safety of all British citizens, not just those in Northern Ireland.
Jill Moss
Chester
• Anyone who needs to be reminded of the harrowing and unbelievable events of the Troubles should read the first-hand accounts of the direct impact on families and friends in a collection of journalistic memories.
Reporting the Troubles, jointly edited by Deric Henderson and Ivan Little, who was my childhood neighbour growing up in Belfast, is not an easy read, but it is essential for those politicians, and anyone else, who are in danger of forgetting.
Liz Stanley
Northumberland
• Jonathan Freedland refers to the particularly English disdain for “little Ireland” and to the fact that the Republic is “backed by 26 members of the EU”. While it would be understandable for those nations to put economic self-interest before the post-Brexit consequences for one of their smallest colleagues, it is much to their credit that solidarity prevails.
Future historians may well find fault with the EU’s attitude to the Greek crisis, but its unfailing support for Ireland and for the maintenance of peace between Northern Ireland and the Republic is commendable. It makes you wonder if such an estimable club isn’t worth the membership fee.
Peter Chapman
Ashwell, Hertfordshire
• I am bemused by Arlene Foster’s insistence that Leo Varadkar would “go down in history as the man who instituted a hard border on the island of Ireland” if he failed to accept the UK’s Brexit proposals (Johnson ‘is misleading MPs’ over Brexit plan, 4 October).
This from the leader of the party whose intransigence forced Theresa May to move from an Ireland-only backstop, agreed with the EU, to a UK-wide backstop – which the DUP then voted against in parliament.
The purpose of the backstop, in both its iterations, is to prevent a hard border on the island of Ireland. As well as a poor memory, it seems that Foster has no sense of irony.
Mike Pender
Cardiff
• Insistence by the Irish government on a watertight backstop may precipitate a no-deal Brexit with an EU-imposed hard border.
Cross-border trade is 0.85% of EU-UK trade. I am lost for a metaphor: gnats and camels; motes and beams; babies and bathwater don’t come close.
Dr John Doherty
Gweedore, County Donegal, Ireland
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