Brexit is not the direct cause of violence in Northern Ireland

April 10 is a historic day in Belfast. 23 years ago, the so-called Good Friday Covenant was signed.

Peace prevailed in Northern Ireland after nearly three decades of violence.

But this April, 23 years later, there is violence and riots again. Police stopped water cannons, a bus caught fire and 88 police officers were injured. Images have been wired around the world. From the White House in Washington, D.C., President Joe Biden has expressed his concern about this development. Yes, even for peace.

There are publications in London As warned by The Financial Times and The Guardian, Northern Ireland is once again drawn to violence. The British media has published headlines about fire and stone-throwing films such as “Back to the Bad Bad Days”.

This is clear: when 13- and 14-year-old boys fight in the 1970s on Shanghai Road in West Belfast, the outside world is at work. These are children not born after peace. They were born more than a decade after the peace treaty was signed. Now they are repeating a kind of violent dance between Protestants and Catholics.

What is really going on?

On the streets of Belfast Many people want to play it this Saturday. Here it is on a normal sunny Saturday – how common it is now when everything is closed by an ongoing epidemic. But above all, people gather outside Castle Hillsboro to pay their respects to the recently deceased Prince Philip.

Glad shops and pubs are reopening on Monday. The economic consequences of firebombs and stone-throwing will be huge: last week’s headlines were not good for the investment climate in Northern Ireland. The epidemic has hit the economy hard.

Try to understand All you have to do is go to Belfast Harbor and get started. This is where many things have to be controlled now because of Brexit. What happened in practice because of Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal is that now there is a border at sea between Northern Ireland and the rest of Britain. For loyal Protestants based on the fact that Northern Ireland is part of Britain, this is difficult to digest.

What happened in practice because of Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal is that now there is a border at sea between Northern Ireland and the rest of Britain. For loyal Protestants based on the fact that Northern Ireland is part of Britain, this is difficult to digest.

In February, Belfast Port sent customs staff home after threatening Graffiti, which identified them as “targets”. There were fears that violent faith groups would see customs officials as traitors. This is a limit that many people think should not be everything at sea. But work on the port quickly resumed. As mozzarella cheese is now subject to some agricultural restrictions, 14-year-old boys throw stones in the evenings.

I ask Matthew O’Toole Worked on both the Prime Minister and the Finance Minister in London on Brexit issues. This year he packed up and went home to Belfast. It was a lot of frustration with how the London government handled Northern Ireland. He simply wondered what Brexit would do to the stability of the region he came from.

– In London, they took up a lot of positions without guessing what that meant for Northern Ireland, he says.

But even Matthew O’Toole changed his mind and became a politician, worried about what Brexit would mean, and he did not even think that last week’s violence was a direct cause of Brexit.

– On the other hand, Brexit is definitely part of the context in which all of this happens.

Matthew O’Toole represents Social Democratic Workers’ Party in Northern Ireland. For a long time Northern Ireland was a party that wanted to become part of Ireland. One who has stood a little on the edge of allegiance and Protestantism can say that he did not bother to check the goods here at the O’Toole port. He did not yet think that the future of Northern Ireland as a part of England was very important.

Violence in recent weeks has erupted in loyal circles in Belfast’s traditional Protestant working class areas. These are groups frustrated with what Brexit stands for. But on Saturday morning, police announced that there were no paramilitary groups behind the violence.

The riots began last week with protests against leading members of the IRA’s political wing, Sinn Fin, who have not been prosecuted for violating contagion controls while attending a funeral. Sin Fine seems to be at least above the law, as many Protestant believers thought.

But the violence of the past week Associated with infection. Street fighters are often young people who cannot go to school or participate in youth groups for months.

Police also point to traditional gang dynamics. Many of the groups that perpetrated political violence in Northern Ireland today have shifted to restricting the drug trade. There are speculations that some gang leaders are simply angry that it will be so difficult to get drugs from Scotland because of the new Brexit restrictions.

It is worth mentioning Scotland on the other side of the ocean.

This is another effect of Brexit affecting the dynamics of Northern Ireland.

In Scotland, Brexit led Updated discussion of Scottish independence. If Scotland leaves Britain, what does it mean for Northern Ireland?

The so-called construction of the UK is a weak point. Britain has always been at risk of simply leaving the EU, but not at its current form at the expense of the country. In fact only England and Wales voted for Brexit.

Northern Ireland and Scotland did not.

Written peace agreement 23 years ago in Belfast it was always based on the fact that both England and Ireland were members of the European Union. This is what makes borders so fluid – people can create their personal identities relatively freely.

Now it has become much harder.

They are Europeans in Dublin – they are not in Belfast now.

In the past, you could send goods for free from Scotland – you can no longer do that.

Brexit was not a direct cause of violence last week.

But Brexit is part of the background to this happening.