The Good Friday Agreement was not just “agreement between two traditions in Northern Ireland”, as Boris Johnson stated in his letter to Donald Tusk, but a democratic covenant between two traditions in Ireland. It was unquestionably endorsed by referendum – north and south – and is directly reflected in the Irish constitution.
To pretend that the Belfast Agreement has an exclusively UK constitutional standing and must be subordinate to new pan-UK impositions – like the “no differentiation” objection to the backstop – defies reality to a provocative degree.
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