– William Shakespeare ( Sonnet 116)‘We are committed to a strong bilateral partnership with Ireland, with which we enjoy a Common Travel Area,” the new review of United Kingdom foreign policy asserts. “We have a shared responsibility and an essential common interest in upholding the 1998 Belfast Agreement in all its elements.”But that relationship is not in a happy place. Brexit has severed a multitude of lines of communication, exposed diverging interests, and injected a contentiousness and degree of mistrust into the relationship. If not quite the “marriage of true minds”, however, the UK-Irish relationship is too important, warm, and deeply intertwined not to overcome this “alteration”, or temporary blip. This post-marriage relationship will survive and can again thrive.

Source: The Irish Times March 17, 2021 19:00 UTC