Local members of the Border Communities Against Brexit group recently staged a protest at the Lifford Bridge, in keeping with protests in other border towns around the North.
Sinn Féin’s Michaela Boyle MLA and Westminster by-election candidate Órfhlaith Begley were among the 30 people proudly displaying posters which read ‘Listen to our voices, respect our vote, no EU frontier in Ireland’. The posters were erected at five other strategic locations in border areas on Monday night.
According to Michaela Boyle unveiling the poster to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the signing of the Good Friday Agreement was highly symbolic.
“Brexit threatens to fundamentally undermine the finely balanced architecture of the Agreement,” she said. “This includes the EU human rights legislation that underpins much of it, and the all-Ireland structures and co-operation that flow from it.”
With this, Boyle feels the disastrous consequences Brexit could bring on the North must also be understood. “The Border Communities Against Brexit campaign has been instrumental in ensuring that the far reaching and disastrous political, economic and social consequences of Brexit upon Ireland and in particular upon border communities like ours have been fully understood within Europe.
“The EU, in its Draft Agreement Proposals has adopted a ‘backstop’ position for a ‘common regulatory area’ for all of Ireland post Brexit if the British government is unable to produce workable solutions to the border question. This would see the North remain in the customs union and elements of the single market.
“While this is welcome, no one can be in any way complacent and we will continue to pressure the Irish Government and other the EU nations to stand firm and make it clear we will not allow the future of all the people of Ireland to be sacrificed on the altar of the Tory-DUP Charter.”