Letter: Balance of the Good Friday Agreement has been upset due to actions of Irish government since Brexit referendum

One of the major concessions that was supposed to be for unionists within the GFA was amending the wording of Articles 2 and 3 within the Irish constitution, changing the tone from a territorial claim over the whole island to one whereby every person within the island had a right to be part of the Irish nation. Article 3 seemed to acknowledge that unification would only be brought about by consent. This replaced the old wording which claimed the whole island and their right to pass laws for all 32 counties. Such a concession to unionists is meaningless if it is in word only.

I would suggest the actions of the Irish government in the aftermath of the Brexit referendum fully resumed the claims contained in the old wording by insisting that EU law and the EU trade area must extend over the whole island, and the British government has accepted this.

Far from sticking to the compromise of the new wording, the Irish government has not only resumed their old claim over NI but their actions in relation to demanding an Irish Sea border are actually the most aggressive assertion of the old constitutional claim in the history of the state.

If the two governments want to pursue this course of action they must at least acknowledge that they have changed, if not abolished, the GFA and stop pretending that these issues are in some way only imagined in the heads of unionists.

R G McDowell, Belfast, BT5