Dr. Katy Hayward:

I shall start by referring to the findings of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, most particularly on the impossibility of having technology that can solve the Border issue as it stands. Such technology may be possible in the future and there are certainly huge developments all the time in regard to technology for customs facilitation, and maybe we will have technology that is invisible to the human eye so people will not notice it. That is not the point. The point is that we would still have a hard border to all intents and purposes. Let us bear in mind that European integration has been primarily about enabling co-operation and movement across internal borders in as frictionless a way as possible. If the UK is taken outside of those arrangements, there is automatically a hard border. The use of technology is really just about trying to make that less obvious to people. Of course, it puts a burden on those moving goods across and, as Professor David Phinnemore mentioned, it does not address the issue of moving services in any shape or form.

I am deeply concerned that this concentration on technology is a bit of a sideshow, not least because it is mostly about trying to create an illusion for those who are most deeply affected by the Border and for whom crossing the Border is a part of everyday life. The openness of the Border is a very real achievement and has made a big difference. Research I have done, and which is ongoing, on the central Border region really brings this home all of the time, in particular with regard to how significant the Border is, not just as an economic meeting point but also, of course, as a symbolic achievement of peace.

The Senator asked whether if the UK as a whole remained in the Single Market and customs union or a customs union, it would effectively mean there would be no Brexit. It does not by any means mean Brexit in name only because the UK would lose most of the privileges and benefits it has as a member of the EU. Certainly UK citizens and UK businesses would experience the downsides of being outside the EU and having no role in decision making. What is of most relevance is the fact that the protocol is designed specifically for Northern Ireland on the grounds of, as has been specified in the joint report and the draft withdrawal agreement itself, recognition of the need to have flexible and imaginative solutions for Northern Ireland in recognition of the Good Friday Agreement and the need to avoid a hard border. It is really not there as an option for the UK to follow.

We then come to the question of the Border poll if we have an increasingly significant Border, which will be the case outside the EU. Regardless of what we have for Northern Ireland, the Border will be more significant in several ways. This is where I think we are in real danger because this is where the Good Friday Agreement is put under threat. The whole principle of the Good Friday Agreement was about avoiding zero-sum definitions of identity and interests within Northern Ireland. Crucially, it involved seeing Northern Ireland as not being a domestic concern of the UK. I would be concerned that a lot of the discourse about Brexit has framed Northern Ireland in those terms when it most certainly is not. The Good Friday Agreement said that it is not solely a domestic concern of the UK. More important, it sounds clichéd but the Border is the meeting point between the UK and Ireland. More particularly, Northern Ireland is where one sees the entanglement of the UK and Ireland in its most obvious form. If we look to the achievements of the Good Friday Agreement in terms of identities, and Northern Irish identity was mentioned earlier, it is a huge achievement that the majority of people in Northern Ireland have been saying that they are comfortable in Northern Ireland and in devolved arrangements within the UK. Some people would prefer to have a united Ireland and a small minority of people would prefer to have direct rule but the majority of people say they are comfortable with devolution in the UK context. Another important point is that 47% of people say they have neither unionist nor nationalist identities according to the Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey. The figure increases to 55% among people aged under 35. This is vitally important and we must bear it in mind if we are to see a way forward.

Where we are at the moment is really unfortunate because it is difficult to think in imaginative terms about Northern Ireland and its future. It is totally understandable that we have this sense of British versus Irish again. Hence the dispute, or apparent dispute, about the future of the Irish Border and, therefore, the sense of the British and Irish Governments disagreeing. It is into that framework that the Good Friday Agreement must come and we must try to preserve what it managed to achieve. We must, therefore, reject as contrary to the Good Friday Agreement this framing of the debate as a choice between Great Britain or Ireland because that will not be a solution. A Border poll is not an answer to anything. It does not provide an answer in that crude way just as the Brexit referendum did not really provide an answer to anything. It is much more complicated than that. The Good Friday Agreement managed to recognise the complexity of the issue and find a balance. To have a Border poll or even to try to assess what the future might be for Northern Ireland in the next five to ten years on the basis of polls around that zero-sum choice between the UK or Ireland will further undermine the centre ground. I repeat that we need that centre ground to be strong in order to see the long-term stability of the peace process. That is not to preclude a Border poll in Lady Sylvia Hermon's lifetime or in the next decade or two but given the challenges we face at the moment, we must concentrate on the centre ground and the consensus that exists between all the parties in Northern Ireland about devolution, the agreement and Brexit.