Professor David Phinnemore:

To come back to the issue of rights, we made a number of comments on this earlier and referred to the work of some of our colleagues at Queen's University. We also referred to the fact that the rights dimension is flagged in the protocol. My understanding from six to nine months ago was that this may not have been something that the EU was willing to engage but it is in the protocol now and it would be very difficult to take it out. The question is how it will be interpreted. One thing we need to be mindful of, and this goes beyond Brexit but possibly reflects its spirit, is the UK's continued participation in the European Convention on Human Rights, which is obviously not affected by the UK's withdrawal from the European Union but has been a prominent goal of a number of Brexiteers over the years and could well come to the fore again. That will be a greater challenge on the rights dimension in terms of the operation of the Good Friday Agreement than Brexit. I would not want us to lose sight of the dynamics within British politics around that question because that would have significant implications.