Northern Ireland and Brexit: Three effects on ‘the border in the mind’
| Published date | 01 August 2017 |
| Date | 01 August 2017 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1369148117711060 |
| Subject Matter | Special Issue Articles - Part One |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1369148117711060
The British Journal of Politics and
International Relations
2017, Vol. 19(3) 497 –511
© The Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/1369148117711060
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Northern Ireland and Brexit:
Three effects on ‘the border
in the mind’
Cathy Gormley-Heenan and Arthur Aughey
Abstract
For those who spoke on behalf of Leave voters, the result on 23 June 2016 meant the people of
the United Kingdom were taking back ‘control’ or getting their ‘own country back’. However, two
parts of the United Kingdom did not vote Leave: Scotland and Northern Ireland. Here, the significant
counterpoint to ‘taking back control is “waking up in a different country”’, and this sentiment has
unique political gravity. Its unique gravity involves two distinct but intimately related matters. The first
concerns the politics of identity. The vote was mainly, if not entirely, along nationalist/unionist lines,
confirming an old division: unionists were staking a ‘British’ identity by voting Leave, and nationalists
an Irish one by voting Remain. The second concerns borders. The Good Friday/Belfast Agreement
of 1998 meant taking the border out of Irish politics. Brexit means running the border between the
European Union (EU) and the United Kingdom across the island as a sovereign ‘frontier’. Although
this second matter is discussed mainly in terms of the implications for free movement of people
and goods, we argue that it is freighted with meanings of identity. Brexit involves a ‘border in the
mind’, those shifts in self-understanding, individually and collectively, attendant upon the referendum.
This article examines this ‘border in the mind’ according to its effects on identity, politics and the
constitution, and their implications for political stability in Northern Ireland.
Keywords
Brexit, constitution, identity, Northern Ireland, peace process
Introduction
One prominent (pro-Leave) journalist (Moore, 2016) wrote of the European Union (EU)
referendum result that the question which should be asked of all aspiring political leaders
is, ‘Who understands that everything has changed, changed utterly?’ Of one thing he was
certain: ‘Brexit is not, primarily, a negotiation, but a new path’. The claim was a large
one: that something substantial and important had taken place, that a shadow line had
been crossed between one sensibility and another, and that the world felt different now.
How was that change appreciated? It was understood broadly in two ways. For those who
Ulster University, Antrim, UK
Corresponding author:
Cathy Gormley-Heenan, Ulster University, Shore Road, Newtownabbey, Antrim BT37 0QB, UK.
Email: c.gormley@ulster.ac.uk
711060BPI0010.1177/1369148117711060The British Journal of Politics and International RelationsGormley-Heenan and Aughey
research-article2017
Special Issue Article
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