Dr. Duncan Morrow:

State visits are symbolic. For example, in 2002 the devolved settlement effectively collapsed internally in Northern Ireland and it took five years for it to be resurrected in any form. Essentially, British-Irish co-operation during that period, exactly as in the period of the framework documents and in the current period, was critical. Therefore, anything which interrupts that is critical. At times during the flags protest and during real tensions around significant issues, the changes in the British-Irish level have been evidence of change for us when it has been complicated inside Northern Ireland. This is a complex agreement. If Brexit has any effect on that, we need to know what it is about.

The Good Friday Agreement was a comprehensive agreement. We need to identify what has changed in the relationship between Britain and Ireland and what are the consequences of that for Northern Ireland. Above all, it disables the Northern Ireland Executive. The Northern Ireland Executive can agree some practical issues on Brexit but when it comes to the way in which it promotes those ideas, I believe that will become increasingly difficult to manage over the next two years and, in the end, that is the framework within which all of the comprehensive issues have to be agreed. Those issues are not just economic and also involve questions of identity, citizenship, local relationships and security. It does not do me any good to pretend that this blank box does not create uncertainty and resentment.

I will finish on an issue which is talked about in the press, so I am not pre-empting anything. If, in the end, there is no deal and everybody walks away, if it is the hardest possible outcome, then, for Northern Ireland, that means the imposition of a hard border through an area in which 80% of the elected representatives are Nationalist. How that is enforced, who enforces it, what it does to the police and what it does to the stability of the Northern Ireland settlement, I have no idea, and I am certainly not going to speculate. However, what I am telling the committee is that it does not seem to me like a process that is leading us towards reconciliation; instead, it seems to be upping the ante. It would be extremely important for somebody to see that in advance and to begin to get that at the centre of the negotiations. This is certainly the case from the Northern side but it strikes me that, given Border communities suffered for years from economic marginalisation within Ireland, the return of a border which puts them back on the margins rather than in the centre is also a problem for the six Border counties.