An Unlikely Threat to the Western Alliance

A simple analysis about the unfolding crisis in Northern Ireland has established itself as settled wisdom among almost all informed observers across Europe, the United States, and even Britain: It’s all London’s fault.

The story is convincing. It was Britain that voted for Brexit despite warnings about the threat it posed to peace in Northern Ireland; Britain that imposed Brexit on Northern Ireland even though the people there voted to remain in the European Union; Britain that chose the hardest possible version of Brexit, one that it knew would be the most disruptive for Northern Ireland; and, finally, Britain that signed a treaty with the EU that it is now threatening to partially revoke over issues in Northern Ireland. All of these charges are true.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is publicly committed to unilaterally abandoning core parts of the 2019 Brexit deal he signed unless he can negotiate significant changes, insisting that the move is necessary because the practical impact of the agreement is undermining the fragile social, economic, and political consensus in Northern Ireland established by the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. But with trust having collapsed between Britain and the EU over Brexit and a raft of other related issues, the EU believes that Johnson is acting in bad faith and has threatened to retaliate, up to and including scrapping the entire Brexit agreement.

And yet even if Brexit—and the specific form of Brexit that Britain has pursued that Johnson is an untrustworthy and irresponsible leader who has made the situation worse that the deal he signed (which he claimed was great and won an election to ratify) really does threaten the very peace settlement in Northern Ireland that it was meant to protect. What is more, if this is the case, the EU must share some responsibility for the mess, for the deal was made as much in Europe as in Britain.