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One year on and two key referendum campaigners remain at odds

 Former DUP councillor Lee Reynolds (left) is NI regional co-ordinator of the Vote Leave campaign. Tom Kelly was a remain campaigner
 Former DUP councillor Lee Reynolds (left) is NI regional co-ordinator of the Vote Leave campaign. Tom Kelly was a remain campaigner  Former DUP councillor Lee Reynolds (left) is NI regional co-ordinator of the Vote Leave campaign. Tom Kelly was a remain campaigner

Lee Reynolds - Leave

The United Kingdom, including its four constituent parts, is leaving the European Union. The democratic decision is being implemented. This is accepted by a significant majority of the public including the majority of Remain voters.

Many of the lurid claims of the Remain campaign – the so-called 'Project Fear' – have simply not came true. In April 2017 the labour force survey shows Northern Ireland has its lowest unemployment rate since 2008. Foreign and domestic business investment has continued. Northern Ireland has just had one of its best ever quarters for exports.

Equally the predictions it would tear the UK apart were wrong too. The SNP has suffered its first major political reversals with unionist parties gaining more than 60 per cent of the vote. In Northern Ireland, the post-referendum nationalist vote still didn't match its previous highpoint and was driven by more domestic issues. Unionism came out in strength in the Westminster election. The life and times survey confirms no significant shift in a demand for Irish unity.

Since the vote, the particular concerns of Northern Ireland have not been ignored. Instead, the border issues are now recognised by every participant in the negotiations. The only people putting up blocks on the border are protestors.

What do I believe will happen next? There will be an agreement on the UK leaving the EU with a new free trade and customs agreement with, if necessary, a time-bound transitionary period. I believe this because it is in the best interests of everyone concerned. However, it does not end there.

Leaving the European Union is not an event, it is a process. The day we leave will be the end of the beginning. From that day forward we can start spending the money we save on our priorities, use and redistribute the returned powers, a proper immigration policy and secure new trade deals. It will be a flexible, global, medium sized state strategy which is exactly what the UK needs for its most secure and prosperous future.

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Tom Kelly - Remain

One year on from an unnecessary referendum, I still feel frustrated, angry and cheated by the tsunami of lies, distortions, half truths and fears that the British electorate were subjected to and indeed duped by during the campaign.

Having led a successful campaign in Northern Ireland, only for the referendum to be lost in England and Wales, any sense of celebration was short lived. That said, events such as the electoral success of the DUP at the recent Westminster elections and the ham-strung, weakened Tory administration have borne out just how important it was to have a Remain vote in Northern Ireland, as the uniqueness of our situation has gone to the very top of the negotiating issues currently under way. The Irish government deserve full credit for lobbying in the economic interests of the entire island especially in the absence of political leadership at Stormont.

It took only a few weeks after the referendum for many of the lies of the Leave campaign - such as the promise to put more money into the NHS to dissipate quicker than snow of a ditch. As foretold during the campaign, the agenda for and discussions about Brexit would be set by the EU and not the UK. The grandiose boasts of a new trading empire for Great Britain has not materialised as India opens up talks with the EU and even Trump's America has discovered that the EU as a bloc is a more important trading partner than the UK alone.

The next two years will be difficult and painful as the UK government slowly realises that it doesn't get to eat off an a la carte menu in the EU without paying. The referendum result was close and very divisive. The decision by both Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn to accept the result as the definitive and decisive will of the UK was naive and foolhardy. The referendum left people with less certainty than they had expected. Northern Ireland has always been a place apart but by the time Brexit negotiations finish its that 'apartness' which may just save it from the worst ravages of Brexit. Well that's what we hope.