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Professor Ronan McCrea writes article for Irish Independent on Tory leadership contest and Brexit
2 July 2019
In the opinion piece, Professor McCrea discusses how Brexit negotiations – including the Irish backstop – would be impacted in the event Boris Johnson wins the Conservative Party leadership contest.
Professor Ronan McCrea, Professor of Constitutional and European Law at UCL Laws, has written an article for The Irish Independent entitled 'If Boris is at the wheel, Brexit will take a very dramatic turn'.
Professor McCrea describes how if Johnson leads Brexit negotiations once he becomes PM, it may well lead to a hard Border between Northern Ireland and Ireland, as well as a no-deal Brexit.
Professor McCrea stated:
"The Irish strategy on Brexit has been based on an assessment that no responsible or rational British government would subject the UK to a no-deal Brexit. This made it sensible to offer the British a stark choice between accepting no hardening of the Border or going for no deal. However, by the autumn we may be dealing with a Johnson-led government that is neither responsible nor rational.
In these circumstances, Ireland will be facing a situation where the backstop, designed to avoid any hardening of the Border, could cause the imposition of the hardest of economic borders, north-south and east-west."