Nigel Farage has been criticised for stating that a Reform UK-led government would seek to renegotiate the Good Friday Agreement as part of a plan to stop small boat crossings.
Under the 1998 peace deal, the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) is incorporated in Northern Ireland law.
Speaking during a press conference on Tuesday, Mr Farage said, as Prime Minister, he would renegotiate the agreement to remove the ECHR elements.
"Can we renegotiate the Good Friday Agreement to get the ECHR out of it? Yes,” he said.
"Is that something that can happen very, very quickly? No, it will take longer.”
The Reform UK leader said he would repeal the Human Rights Act, leave the ECHR and disapply several international treaties to make it easier to deport asylum seekers.
In response to Mr Farage’s comments, Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s official spokesperson said: "The ECHR underpins key international agreements on trade, security, migration, and the Good Friday Agreement, and anyone who is proposing to renegotiate the Good Friday Agreement is not serious."
SDLP MP Colum Eastwood said the focus of the debate around Britain’s future is “moving troublingly to the right”.
“Plans announced today by Nigel Farage which would gut human rights protections in order to throw people out and pull up the drawbridge are just the latest example in a long line of charged rhetoric that Brexiteers and others have deployed since 2016,” he said.
“People on this island see the turmoil in Britain and the narrow, insular, divisive vision of the future being promoted by people like Farage and they increasingly want no part of it.
“It is slowly melting old certainties about what people in a range of communities think their own future and the future of their family looks like.
“In that regard, by trashing the value of human rights, by talking fast and loose about the legal framework that underpins the Good Friday Agreement and peace in Northern Ireland and by promoting a politics of resentment in Britain, Farage is making a powerful case for people here to choose a new Ireland.”
In his speech, Mr Farage also said that, under a Reform UK government, women and children who enter the UK illegally would be detained upon arrival. He added that deporting children would be “much more complicated”.
"Women and children, everybody on arrival will be detained, and I’ve accepted already that how we deal with children is a much more complicated and difficult issue,” he said.
The MP for Clacton added that “anger will grow” if the UK’s immigration system is not overhauled, warning of a “genuine threat” to public order.
In May last year, the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee told MPs that the UK Government would be in breach of the Good Friday Agreement if it withdrew from the ECHR.
The committee added: "Given the convention is embedded in the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement, written into the Northern Ireland Act 1998 and determines how the Northern Ireland Assembly legislates, we note that Northern Ireland is often overlooked whenever the prospect of ECHR withdrawal is raised."
by RemielMonroe
37 comments
With the impending possibility that a UK Government led by a majority Reform UK party will be in place after the next General Election, had been wondering what impact might be felt by Northern Ireland and it’s people.
Up until now not much has been shared but it appears that Northern Ireland is going to become a massive focal point if exiting the ECHR is to be achieved.
It could well just be political posturing but on the other hand maybe a few cards have just been shown..
“Renegotiate the Good Friday Agreement”
– Are there no limits to the mans ambitions?
With no due respect Nigel, go fuck yourself with a cactus.
Renegotiate something that saw all those prisoners (on both sides) released? Not sure that’ll go down well WITH ANYONE.
He’s already been in a plane crash, adding a car crash to the CV would be wee buns.
NI to stay in ECHR, like the EU customs union – problem solved
A Reform Government could be the straw that broke the Unions back
Go for it.
You’ll probably find the only viable route in this instance is for a reunification referendum, and NI to cease to exist.
Nigel Farage: Two birds, one stone
This is the bell end that wants the privatisation of the NHS and cut taxes for the rich. The only reason he is so popular now is that they have manipulated the working class uneducated voters into thinking the boats coming in it at Dover is the worst problem the country faces and deporting them all will magically solve all the UK’s problems. He painted himself as the working persons friend but in reality he is a multi millionaire tax dodger. He’s also as working class as I am rocket scientist. He also stood in the most deprived area of England as he knew that was his best chance of winning a seat in parliament as he couldn’t win any in the past. I’d advise anyone that thinks this arse wipe has their best interests at heart look at his party’s policies beyond immigration it will open your eyes a bit.
If you’re a republican, you need to be renegotiating the GFA to clarify the trigger for a referendum because it is currently vague in a way that suits the British government more than anyone.
Some of the more hardcore loyalists will be foaming at the mouth at the idea of Farage renovating the GFA to stick it to the Fenians. The reality is, just like Boris 5 years ago, any British PM is going to sell NI down the river in a heartbeat if it suits them. No one here votes for any of the governing Westminster parties and we have been a headache for them for 100 years, why the fuck would they look out for NI’s interests at any stage
“Deportations would/will happen within hours if they were in government” then in the next question about the EHRC he says “in relation to Northern Ireland and the good Friday agreement, ya it will take a bit longer, it will take time” BELLEND!!!
THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER!!!
I don’t possibly see how that could go wrong.
This just in Nigel Farage has announced UKIP, I mean the Brexit party, I mean Reform UK has once again changed name to Norsefire.
https://i.redd.it/93wzocfqtdlf1.gif
Best I can do is an angry man yelling at clouds, because noone else is going to listen.
A man who understands northern Ireland so much he was quoted as saying ” up the ra” in his cameo
Already said in another thread Reform will be the final nail in the coffin for the Union if they get into govt. No one is renegotiating the GFA to suit Britain and especially not England.
They want rid of the ECHR to get rid of worker rights and human rights in general (immigration is simply a smokescreen).
The north is obviously an issue to farage and they’ll sell this place away to get their ‘perfect brexit’ (that’s english nationalism for you). If english voters are dumb enough to go down this route then Irish Reunification and Scottish Independence are the only answers.
Using trumps playbook to appeal to bigots and morons. Could be a prime reason for a UI.
The Good Friday agreement needed the world’s best mediators, diplomacy taken on trust, and the will of two embattled communities to succeed.
I don’t think a racist investment banker tinpot fascist will be able to top it, if I’m honest.
As if Nigel ‘up the Ra’ Farage knows a single thing about the Good Friday Agreement or Ireland in general for that matter.
Plot twist the renegotiation would simply be handing back Northern Ireland to the Republic.
Anyone who thinks the grifter in chief Farage would have the brains to negotiate anything meaningful is smoking some serious shit. Probably the same people who believe that Farage will be PM after the next GE.
Personally I can’t wait for Unionism to throw it’s backing behind this plan because their form for backing a pup never ceases to amaze me.
Farage wants to remove the parts of the ECHR that prevent him from sending migrants back to their home countries, which is an extremely reckless thing to do.
Human rights are extremely important, and nearly everything in the ECHR is critical for any civilised country. But there are aspects of it that are just not workable in every situation, and actually make things worse.
The main complaint of the braindead right wing lot is that the migrants are here, living in hotels (actually only 250 migrants housed in hotels in NI, but that’s beside the point) and essentially giving nothing back. If the ECHR allowed people to be paid through bed and board instead of money, then in return for being housed in council housing or hotels they could be out doing community work – cleaning parks and beaches, doing simple manual tasks like restoring public buildings etc… Stuff that takes almost no training, but at least provides a service.
We could also impose mandatory education in things like English language and community integration so that eventually they are able to get full time jobs and be able to live a normal life like the rest of us. Again, this would break terms of the ECHR.
There are so many common sense things that we could be doing to help migrants be more accepted and an actual part of our communities, but as it stands they cant be implemented.
How people don’t see this guy for the conman he is is beyond me.
* Sold the public on Brexit with no framework for how to implement it then dipped
* Continually campaigned for a no-deal Brexit which would’ve plunged NI into an even deeper mess than before
* Actively cozied up to the Conservatives at their conference, and welcomed many as Reform MPs – the same people who enacted the policies he’s criticising
* Was glowingly positive about Liz Truss’s budget
* Went on *I’m A Celebrity* to boost his public image, claiming that his politics days were behind him
* Installed himself as leader of Reform UK (a company he owns) without a vote from the membership soon after
There is *no evidence* that he will actually improve the lives of people in the UK apart from instilling them with a sense of patriotism.
And lo continues the right wing English obsession with NI, the GFA and the peace process along with their grubby little idea on how to ruin all three for their own petty gain.
It feels like we’ve only just gotten rid of Gove and his bitterness that the IRA and Catholics weren’t crushed outright and Britain had to negotiate a settlement, and now we’ve got Farage popping up dribbling shite out of his mouth as usual.
Why does this monkey even get airtime
Nigel Farage…the Temu Trump
Could he renegotiate it? Sure, in theory.
Will Ireland and all the parties to the multi-party agreement agree to it? No, the political establishment in Ireland and among the nationalist parties in NI is too firmly wedded to the EU and its institutions to consider ditching the ECHR.
What is likely to happen is Farage will make a token effort, fail, and move on. Or just memory hole all his talk of leaving the ECHR after he wins.
From the muppet that jumped after Brexit and ran cause he couldn’t do the work he cried for.
Sure, all you need are all the nationalist parties, all the unionist parties, the British government, the Irish government, the EU and the US to agree to the slightest alterations. Good luck
Watch loyalism support English nationalism and feel betrayed once again when it blows up in their faces!
Detaching Northern Ireland from the UK would allow him to have the most secure borders possible for GB itself, it would be much simpler and there’d be no blowback for him electorally. Seems outrageous to imagine but so was Nigel Farage as PM and that seems to be coming into focus regardless
The part of his speech where he’s asked about the GFA:
https://streamable.com/x9xmj0
Easier said than done, but talkin’s all he needs to do at this stage.
Another day of fearing a 2nd Troubles
It won’t happen. It was a hard won agreement. Would be complete madness to even consider touching that.
I don’t see what could possibly go wrong when a reactionary, populist figure like Farage tries to change the GFA…
Bullshit. You can’t renegotiate agreements unless all parties involved agree to renegotiate . There isn’t a chance in hell that the parties involved would renegotiate
Farage is a liar & he’s simply talking about giving NI to ROI.
Farage knows the only way to get rid of the ECHR is to get rid of Northern Ireland.
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