Department of Politics and International Relations
Joe Biden's Election Means Boris Johnson Is Running Out of Options On Northern Ireland And The Internal Market Bill
Posted on 11 November 2020
Adam Fusco was interviewed for an article on PoliticsHome.com this week called "Joe Biden's Election Means Boris Johnson Is Running Out of Options On Northern Ireland And The Internal Market Bill"
The article asks the question: The UK government insists its Internal Market Bill does not imperil the Good Friday Agreement. But can it convince the incoming US president and the Irish American lobby?
Adam says "There is a reasonable enough argument to say [the IMB] doesn’t violate the Good Friday Agreement as such, but it does attack the spirit of it. What’s so radical about the Good Friday Agreement is that it allows people in Northern Ireland to be Irish citizens, essentially, within the territory of the United Kingdom. And that’s not just about, ‘okay, you can feel Irish and you can identify as Irish’, it means that you also have some actual kind of political and legal rights as an Irish citizen within the territory of the UK. I think there’s a feeling that things like the IMB rub up against that idea very, very sharply.”