With Brexit in an ever-looming state, it seems inevitable the country will circle back to its favourite and most controversial issue: Northern Ireland. Since 1997 and the Good Friday Agreement, signed in by Blair, the Northern Ireland has seen significant improvements in both relations with the mainland and its adjoining Republic. However, Brexit may forecast a collapse in this amnesty.
The first issue, the biggest issue, that a Brexit UK faces is citizenship. If you were born in Northern Ireland, or have either a parent or grandparent born in Northern Ireland or The Éire, then you're eligible for a Republic of Ireland passport. This has led to hilarious backlash, such as the Belfast Passport Office running out of dual-citizenship forms on the 24th June. Anyway, this issue is incredible because it ultimately divides sovereignty of NI between London and Dublin. One solution would be border control, whether of NI, Great Britain, or Ireland.
This smugly moves on the next problem - border control. Northern Ireland cannot erect a border, since if would violate the Good Friday Agreement, and certain nationalists would have a problem with that. The Island of Great Britain could also increase their border control between itself and NI, which, amongst other issues, would seem strange between two islands of the same country. Furthermore, this doesn't stop EU citizens living in NI, or moving there, and doesn't even stop U.K. citizens from free movement into Ireland; an EU state. It could be argued, by more extreme solutionists, that Ireland should patrol and increase border security for the United Kingdom. However, considering free movement is allowed between Ireland and the rest of the EU, this is already a failed idea, without even considering if Ireland would do it or not.
The third way, a Greenland-esque division, directing a comparison from when Greenland left the EU, but Denmark didn't. This could work, but would the EU allow it? Considering Northern Ireland doesn't have the GDP, or any other of possible requirements met to join, the EU couldn't possibly allow them to join back. Furthermore, it would seem completely disrespectful to the five candidate countries that have been waiting years to join, only to see part of a country that voted to leave join back.
What possible solution, you may ask, could possibly fix this. A somewhat of a out-of-the-box and optimistic solution is to declare Northern Ireland as an overseas territory. This way, the autonomous region of NI is free to join whichever trade agreements exempt from the U.K., and also consider free movement of people with Ireland without creating too much of an issue. There is precedent, with Gibraltar and Spain, Cyprus and even smaller overseas territories in the Mediterranean from other states in Europe.
This way, with Northern Ireland as an overseas territory, NI would keep everything the unionists want such as the Queen, but also have more independence for the nationalists. It would appease the EU, since they would see it as calming tensions between states, and the U.K. would be pleased since there's no violation of the Good Friday Agreement. It's a win for every side.
Except the Scottish, but that's a far deeper issue.
