Letter: Northern Ireland state can be systematically dismantled without contravening consent principle in the Belfast Agreement

​I refer to Brian Walker’s article (Challenge is to keep showing voters importance of Union, October 6) – in it, Brian writes that the Belfast Agreement contained “important guarantees of Northern Ireland’s future” and that it “gave a degree of constitutional certainty”.

Those who supported this agreement no doubt hoped that it was a settlement that could take the constitutional issue off the political agenda. Instead, Sinn Fein and SDLP have seen it as providing for a process of gradual progress to an all Ireland state.

The reason is clear. All references to the consent principle regarding Northern Ireland’s constitutional status refer only to the final handover of power to Dublin. The Supreme Court judgment in the case brought by Jim Allister, Ben Habib, Kate Hoey and others said this (par.84):

“In Miller No 1, this court unanimously held that section 1 of the NIA [Northern Ireland Act] 1998 does not regulate any change in the constitutional status of Northern Ireland other than the right to determine whether to remain part of the United Kingdom or to become part of a united Ireland. There is no reason to depart from the decision in Miller No 1 which is dispositive of this ground of appeal. The appellants’ submission as to a wider meaning of section 1 of the NIA 1998 is incorrect.”

This means that there is potential for unlimited constitutional changes short of a final handover. That, of course, includes the suspension of parts of Article 6 of the Acts of Union.

The Northern Ireland state can be systematically dismantled, piece by piece, without ever contravening the consent principle in the Belfast Agreement.

Our whole economy can be restructured as a result of legislation to align Northern Ireland with the Irish Republic rather than Great Britain.

That explains why there has been no constitutional certainty.

Far from being taken off the agenda, our constitutional arrangements have remained at the centre of nationalist-republican politics.

Dr Paul Kingsley, Belfast