A blog post in The Conversation by Mr. Colin Murray, discussing David Trimble’s legal challenge against the part of the Brexit withdrawal agreement relating to the so-called Irish “backstop”, for breaching the Good Friday Agreement.
There has always been something of Don Quixote about David Trimble, the awkward politician who never really shrugged off his persona as a legal academic. In 1998 no one could deny the urgency with which he sought to right seemingly unrightable wrongs. In reaching the Good Friday Agreement – also known as the Belfast Agreement – the then leader of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) set out to build a new Northern Ireland, one free from the spectre of political violence and shorn of the sectarian discrimination of the past.
If Northern Ireland could change from being, in the ringing words of Trimble’s Nobel lecture, “a cold house for Catholics”, maybe the nationalist community would become less resistant to it remaining part of the United Kingdom.
Nearly 21 years later, Trimble has announced a bold move to capture the limelight: threatening a legal challenge against the part of the Brexit withdrawal agreement relating to the so-called Irish “backstop”, for breaching the Good Friday Agreement.