The loyalist and republican revolutionary groups are using the U.K.'s withdrawal from the European Union as a political shield to reignite the inactive operations of terrorism. Nations thought that the fight in Northern Ireland ended with the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 (Blazakis & Colin) . When the agreement took effect, most paramilitary organizations involved stopped functioning, but some small splinter groups still waged violent campaigns at a low level.
Brexit appeared to have provided the collection of Northern Ireland's splinter groups a new political advantage, enlivening the dormant terrorist campaigns. The police have reported a rise in paramilitary violence. In the 2016 referendum, when Northern Ireland supported by a majority on whether the U.K. ought to leave E.U., Ireland's national politicians used the results to drive for a poll on the Irish union. There were fears that the likely construction of a corporal infrastructure alongside the border after Brexit could provoke republican paramilitaries and revive their violence campaigns. The recent occurrences give credibility to that fear.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
The European Union and Irish negotiators knew the security risk associated with a hard border. Brexit's main priority was to ensure that the departure agreement would not violate Ireland's rigid boundary. That was the reasoning behind the backstop proposal by Theresa May, U.K. Prime Minister and Prime Minister Boris Johnson lately sanctioned an agreement that suppressed nationalist concerns. It specifies that Northern Ireland will stay a portion of the new U.K. customs unification but will be allied by the EU regulatory agenda. However, most unionists view the agreement by Johnson as a betrayal. In the Brexit referendum, many unionists voted to leave, and even though they chose a withdrawal deal that provided a soft Ireland border, they were against any agreement that treated Ireland inversely that the rest of the U.K. (Blazakis & Colin) . Unionists have organized many protest activities in the country, with a few loyalist paramilitaries suggesting at a potential violence return.
Loyalist paramilitaries are starting to take sharper political focus. Even though they have not committed high attacks or spoken about their opposition to change, they have been the midpoint of unionist protest gatherings in the country since the agreement was announced in October 2019. There are increasing attacks driven by loyalists, hinting at greater danger. Much is unknown about Northern Ireland's future since Johnson Brexit's agreement failed to solve the most troublesome issues. The paramilitary groups will act anytime to serve their interests.
Reference
Blazakis, Jason, and Colin P. Clarke. "Brexit Could Spark a Return to Violence in Northern Ireland." Foreign Policy , 22 Jan. 2020, foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/22/northern-ireland-paramilitary-violence-brexit/.
