Northern Ireland firms warn of risks from no-deal Brexit

cde.news desk 11 March 2019, 07:10 · 1 min read

epa07418938 (38/66) Irish flags fly by a mural painted on a building in the Republican area of The Bogside in Londonderry in Northern Ireland in Britain, 28 February 2019. The Bogside is a neighbourhood outside the city walls of Derry. In 1969, a battle against the RUC and local Protestants' known as the 'Battle of the Bogside' became a starting point of the Troubles. Between 1969 and 1972, the area became a no-go area for the British Army and police. Neither the UK nor the EU wants a hard border, and the Irish backstop is the mechanism that negotiators agreed upon to prevent that from happening. The open border, a now-invisible, 499-kilometer (310-mile) line running through countryside, farmland and bisecting main roads, is enshrined in an international peace deal that in 1998 helped to extinguish decades of sectarian and political violence in Northern Ireland; a period known as the Troubles. Over 3,000 people died during the Troubles, which saw unionist paramilitaries from largely Protestant areas, who identify as British, and republican militias from largely Catholic areas, who sought a re-unified Ireland, trade terror. Britain is scheduled to leave the European Union on 29 March 2019, two years after Prime Minister Theresa May invoked Article 50, the mechanism to notify the EU of her country's intention to abandon the member's club after the tightly-contested 2016 referendum. The results of that referendum exposed a divided nation. Leave won, claiming 52 percent of the overall vote. Voters in England and Wales came out in favor of leave, while Scotland and Northern Ireland plumped for remain. EPA-EFE/NEIL HALL ATTENTION: For the full PHOTO ESSAY text please see Advisory Notice epa07418899 , epa07418900

Northern Ireland businesses urged British lawmakers to seek a compromise over Brexit and avoid the economic and social risks the province faces in crashing out of the bloc without a deal.

Ahead of a vote on Tuesday on the divorce agreement struck with the bloc last year, more than 50 businesses warned members of parliament in an open letter of the dangers of failing to unite behind a way forward that avoids a hard border and protects peace and economic progress in Northern Ireland.

Prime Minister Theresa May has so far failed to secure the changes to the deal needed to gain parliamentary support, including from the pro-Brexit Northern Irish party propping up her minority government.

Among the signatories of the letter were major local and multinational employers including Bombardier, Coca-Cola, Danske Bank, Norbrook Laboratories, Queen’s University Belfast, the Viridian Group and Royal Bank of Scotland’s Ulster Bank unit.

Via Reuters

Topics BREXIT Northern Ireland