Nigel Farage has clearly not been giving Northern Ireland much thought.
The Reform UK leader launched his party’s plan to deal with illegal immigration at a flashy press conference on Tuesday morning.
Entitled “Operation Restoring Justice”, it promises to deport 600,000 people within five years. The first two steps of the plan are to leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and repeal the Human Rights Act, which applies it in domestic law. A British Bill of Rights would take its place.
Neither Farage nor the launch document addressed the convention’s role in the Belfast Agreement.
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Asked about this by a journalist, the Reform leader replied: “Can we renegotiate the Good Friday Agreement to get the ECHR out of it? Yes. Is that something that can happen very, very quickly? No, it will take longer. It will take longer.
“So unfortunately, and for a variety of reasons – previous governments have placed Northern Ireland, I’m afraid, in a different position to the rest of the United Kingdom, something that we vigorously opposed – it will take a little bit longer with Northern Ireland.”
Subtler answers to this question were available.
The Belfast Agreement requires the convention to be “incorporated into Northern Ireland law”. Whenever the Conservative Party proposes fiddling with the UK’s rights architecture, as it has done regularly for a decade, a debate takes place on whether the Human Rights Act could be left in force in Northern Ireland alone and still meet the terms of the Belfast Agreement.
Most legal experts argue the UK would have to remain a member of the convention to ensure citizens in Northern Ireland could continue to have ultimate recourse to the European Court of Human Rights at Strasbourg and its evolving rulings.
But the purpose of incorporation is to no longer have to go to Strasbourg. The UK Supreme Court could continue fulfilling that role for Northern Ireland. That would still leave concerns about a human rights “sea border” and a backdoor for immigration into Britain. Such a sea border has already been created by the Windsor Framework, however, to nationalist delight and unionist resignation.
The possibility of an immigration back door arose during the short-lived Rwanda deportation scheme. The then-Conservative government lost a court case over this in Belfast last year. It was planning to appeal on the grounds that immigration has never been devolved so it is not covered by the rights protected by the Belfast Agreement. The government fell before the appeal could be heard.
Farage could have alluded to any of this on Tuesday.
Instead, he casually dropped a bombshell about renegotiating the Belfast Agreement at length and thus presumably in depth. His remarks immediately raised nationalist hopes and unionist fears about a Reform government holding a Border poll or dumping Northern Ireland altogether.
While Farage’s reference to wanting the same rights law across the UK reveals unionist instincts, having to be prompted on the subject shows it is hardly his priority.
Unionists might consider this all hypothetical, as Reform is a long way from power. Westminster’s first-past-the-post system is a formidable obstacle to any new party.
[ Tory Scottish parliamentarian defects to Farage’s Reform UKOpens in new window ]
Nationalists need to be careful about scorning immigration plans that could attract cross-community sympathy. Renegotiating the Belfast Agreement could also be popular if it is portrayed as opening the way to Stormont reform.
But unionism still faces a hard new political reality if Northern Ireland comes to be seen in Britain as an obstacle to controlling immigration.
The public mood on this issue is febrile. Reform is trying to keep up with it, rather than leading it. Other parties will now try to follow Reform. There may be little time to muse on the nuisance of the Belfast Agreement before people will demand simple answers.
Unionism could counter this with the argument that the convention could be left in Northern Ireland law alone. However, it would be wise to consider a more assertive response to Farage.
Why is it necessary to leave the ECHR to tackle immigration?
Other member states are implementing tough policies by using opt-outs, exemptions and emergency declarations, or just by defying Strasbourg. Italy and Denmark are leading a group of nine member states calling for reform of the convention. Why not join them?
Membership of the convention is required by the UK’s trade deal with the EU, which Reform claims it wants to strengthen. Why is there no mention of this in Operation Restoring Justice?
Unionists could accuse Farage of repeating the fundamental mistake of Brexit: blaming the UK’s stagnation on continental institutions instead of the establishment at home.
Leaving the EU has revealed that the metropolitan blob, not Brussels, is the cause of everything he despises. Leaving the ECHR would be no different.
But that would be tricky argument for unionism to make. The DUP in particular bought so heavily into Farage’s Brexit vision it would effectively end up ridiculing itself.
