Remarks of Professor Colin Harvey

Date01 January 2018
153
ANNUAL LECTURE 2017:
CHECKPOINT CATHAL – BREXIT AND
THE BORDER
Remarks by
PROFESSOR COLIN HARVEY*
Good evening everyone. I would like thank the Hibernian Law Journal for the
invitation to speak this evening and I would like thank Daniel and the Hibernian
team for all their eorts. ey have been an outstanding team, so I would like to
give them all a round of applause at this point for the remarkable organisation of
this event.
I have travelled to be with you this evening via the currently invisible border
between the North and South – before the wall goes up, of course. As everyone is
aware, as of this evening there is particular anxiety in Northern Ireland about the
implications of Brexit, just as there are anxieties on this entire island for what lies
ahead.
By way of setting the scene for the conversation to follow, my areas are broadly in
constitutional law and human rights, and that is where I want to go this evening,
with reference to Northern Ireland in particular. I want to do three things. First,
I want to say something about impact and consequences. Second, I want to say
something about handling constitutional complexity. And third, I want to say
something about missing pieces in the current conversation.
In prefacing what I will say this evening, and what the panel is about to say, I
think we are at an absolutely key moment right now in terms of this process over
the course of the coming days – or hours, maybe, who knows? – and I think it
is important that everybody plays a part in informing the conversation that is
happening.
Impact and Consequences
In some senses, coming down here today I get a sense that, for many of us, we are fed-
up at this point with Brexit. We cannot escape ‘Brexit fatigue’, but it is important
that we remain focused on Brexit and focused on the impact and consequences in
relation to Northern Ireland in particular. I still think a signicant to point out in
* Prof. Colin Harvey is Professor of Human Rights Law at ueen’s University Belfast.

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