THE IMPLICATIONS OF BREXIT ON THE POSSIBILITY OF REUNIFICATION OF NORTHERN IRELAND AND THE REPUBLIC OF IRELAND (2016 – 2020)

Abstract

Brexit leaves major significant impacts on one of its constituent countries, Northern Ireland. These significant impacts happen because of Northern Ireland’s geographical location that is located outside of Great Britain and bordering directly with the Republic of Ireland as well as its painful history of 30-year ethno-nationalist conflict with the Republic of Ireland. Thus, Brexit has several implications especially in the sector of economy or trade, border, and security. Those implications are deemed to aggravate the status quo of Northern Ireland and undermine the Irish peace process. It causes identity confusion, forge violence, and political and economic instability. As a result, many Northern Irish opt to stay in the EU, thus the approval rate of a re-unification between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland keeps increasing each year since the Brexit referendum in 2016. This research uses qualitative method which the data are gathered from various resources like books, journals, publications, news, reports, and etc. Also, the analysis of this research is using Constructivism theory by Alexander Wendt especially in the points of identity, culture, shared norms, and scientific knowledge in order to better explain the conditions, interests, and behaviour of Northern Ireland that is caused by Brexit.