Constitutional conundrum

Red Lines

BBC

Government

4.6 • 74 Ratings

🗓️ 22 June 2022

⏱️ 29 minutes

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Summary

Six years on from the Brexit referendum - how secure is the Union?

Transcript

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0:00.0	It was six years ago this week that the UK voted to leave the EU.
0:04.1	Since then, the debate around constitutional change has gained momentum.
0:08.5	Scotland's First Minister, Nicholas Sturgeon, has now indicated her intention to hold a second independence referendum.
0:14.5	And here, the public conversation about constitutional change on the island of Ireland is a political reality.
0:20.6	So what happens here in Northern Ireland is influenced to a greater or a lesser extent by what happens elsewhere in the UK and in the Republic of Ireland.
0:29.9	And my guests on today's red lines have interesting insights into both.
0:34.3	Lord Dunlop has served as a minister in both the NIO and the Scotland office.
0:39.1	He was David Cameron's devolution advisor in number 10 between 2012 and 2015, and he's the author
0:44.4	of the eponymous Dunlop review into the UK's changing constitutional landscape.
0:50.4	Professor Mary Murphy lectures in Government and Politics at University College Cork, where she specialises in the study of the EU and Northern Ireland politics.
0:59.2	Her book on the constitutional future of Northern Ireland after Brexit was published in March of this year.
1:05.2	Welcome to both of you.
1:06.6	It's very good to have you on the programme.
1:10.0	Mary Murphy, to what extent do you think constitutional change in this part of the world is now inevitable?
1:16.3	I'm not sure that constitutional change is inevitable. I think a conversation about constitutional change is certainly inevitable.
1:24.2	But the actual achievement of constitutional change is something that is not necessarily
1:29.3	assured. The conversation which has emerged around constitutional change has in many ways been
1:36.4	heavily influenced by Brexit and the UK decision to leave the EU. But it's still a conversation
1:43.1	which is very much in its infancy, I would argue. It's being
1:46.8	talked about in abstract ways in many senses. Much of the practicality around what a United
1:54.4	Ireland, for example, might look like, is really highly underdeveloped. And I think until we start having a sophisticated and an advanced conversation
2:04.6	about what any New Ireland might look like,
	...

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