Why Brexit Is Still Fueling Irish Border Tension

Keeping the land border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland free of any visible checkpoints is a key plank of the Brexit accord between the European Union and U.K. An agreement, known as the Northern Ireland Protocol, aimed to do just that. Yet it’s roundly drawn criticism and its implementation has been controversial. Unionists claim it undermines their British identity because it treats Northern Ireland differently from the rest of the U.K., while companies have complained it disrupts trade. The dispute has fostered suspicion and fueled a war of words between the U.K. and EU which threatens to undermine the wider trade and cooperation agreement between them. Meanwhile, other outstanding issues remain unresolved.

Following Brexit, the 310-mile (499-kilometer) frontier running from near Derry in the north to Dundalk on the east coast of Ireland became the EU’s new land border with the U.K. Without special status, checks would have had to take place on the frontier because the U.K. has exited the customs union and single market. The concern was that delays could hamper the free movement of people and goods between the two parts of Ireland, which was partitioned a century ago, and customs posts could become targets for violence. The protocol was seen as an answer. By keeping the land border free of potentially provocative checkpoints, both sides hoped to prevent a return to the era of sectarian violence, which cost more than 3,000 lives between the late 1960s and the signature of a peace accord, the Good Friday Agreement, in 1998.