Professor Colin Harvey:

Across a range of areas, there has been a failure to implement the agreement in British domestic law, policy, and practice. I have tried to frame my contribution today around an implementation gap that rests with the British and the Irish Governments as co-guarantors of that agreement. There is a bigger problem that the constitutional significance of the Good Friday Agreement for this island has not made its way fully and effectively into the British constitutional legal system, be it politically, or legally as well. That is something we need to think about remedying in the time ahead.

We are in a context where we are talking about a Brexit conversation as well and where we do not want to be in a situation in a number of years time where we cannot do anything if some of the guarantees that are being given at the moment are not being realised in practice. That needs urgent work and legal reform within the British system, but it is an endemic problem. The reason for framing it in relation to the agreement is that we are on a pathway towards referendums on constitutional change on the island, and I mentioned this at the start. I refer to the right to self-determination. When people talk about human rights in the agreement they tend to skip over this one, but it is an important one. It is in the agreement and it is linked to the principle consent, and there is a conversation on the island about planning and preparing, in a prudential way, for those referendums that are coming. Nobody wants the Brexit mess on this island. It is about planning and preparing, and central to the planning and preparing is the framework of the Good Friday Agreement, and the values that are there, and the birthright guarantee is crystal clear on this. Those guarantees are intended to persist into the future, and those are guarantees for British citizens in the future. Those are guarantees in relation to unionists and loyalists in the future, that rights will be respected, and it is absolutely vital that we have that Good Friday Agreement framework. That is why when one sees the Good Friday Agreement undermined in the way it is in the here and now, that should give us all pause for thought about the future, and it has been why there is bit of frustration around these debates.

I tried to underline at the start that this is not about winners and losers. Emma's and Jake's courageous stand around the birthright guarantee will benefit everyone who is protected by that guarantee, now and into the future, wherever the future may take us, and so many arguments about the Good Friday Agreement are on that basis. The implementation gap harms everyone in the North, and that is why it needs to be addressed.

Just to repeat myself, which I am prone to do, it is about both Governments creating a level playing field so that the Good Friday Agreement, and its institutions and values, might find the space to breathe.