Northern Ireland

Denis Bradley voted to leave the EU but believes Ireland will be spared the worst consequences of Brexit

Denis Bradley believes Ireland is safe from the worst consequences of Brexit. Picture by Margaret McLaughlin
Denis Bradley believes Ireland is safe from the worst consequences of Brexit. Picture by Margaret McLaughlin Denis Bradley believes Ireland is safe from the worst consequences of Brexit. Picture by Margaret McLaughlin

FORMER Policing Board vice-chairman Denis Bradley has said he voted for Brexit because he believed it would create a "mini revolution" across Ireland and Britain.

The Derry-based columnist with The Irish News revealed how he voted in the 2016 EU referendum at the MacGill Summer School in Glenties, Co Donegal.

"You're going to have to forgive me for I have sinned," the former priest told the audience ahead of elaborating on his motivation for voting Leave.

He said that he voted to leave the EU because the status quo would have been "fairly bland and very predictable", whereas a victory for the Brexiteers would "lead to a mini revolution and change all the dynamics on this island and on other islands within this archipelago".

Mr Bradley described himself as a "fundamental European" but said he believed there was a need for a "re-examination of the relationships within these islands – between England and Ireland; between Ireland north and south; between Ireland and Scotland; and between Scotland and England".

"It hasn't been examined and it hasn't changed much for a long, long period of time," he said, adding that such a situation was "unsustainable".

He said he was surprised by the depth of emotion and the depth of divisions arising from the referendum result.

"But on our small island it was becoming a little annoying listening to half-baked theories – certainly in my opinion half-baked theories – that the nationalist people of Ireland had given up on the desire or possibility, or even the desirability of unity, and that people, particularly in the south of Ireland, had really lost the interest as they had become richer and better rooted within the island of Ireland," he said.

He said recent research showed that the desire for Irish unity still existed – "There is still that ambition, there is still that hope".

Mr Bradley said that "on the other side" there was the "juvenile mantra" of dissident republicanism which claimed Ireland's problems would be solved by British withdrawal and that that sentiment needed to be re-examined.

Notably, however, he said he believed Ireland "is now safe from the worst of Brexit".

"I think that the people who are going to suffer most from the consequences of Brexit are going to be England and Scotland – I think we have found a fairly safe harbour," he said.

He said he believed Ireland would be spared the worst of Brexit because the EU would not discuss future trade arrangements with Britain until the issue of the border was resolved and because influential US politicians, including Nancy Pelosi and Richard Neal, had pledged there would be no trade deal between the US and UK if the Good Friday Agreement was "interfered with in a negative way".

"Brexit winds will continue to blow – there will be outcomes, there will be consequences – but not at the existential level that we thought and perhaps feared might happen," he said.