A Thesis of the Northern Ireland Border Issue after Britain's Departure from the European Union

Abstract

It took the United Kingdom four years from the EU referendum in 2016 to formally leave the EU in 2020 before it finally left the EU. This process is quite complicated, during which the British and European sides went through a number of negotiations before reaching an agreement to leave the European Union, but the agreement was rejected three times in the British Parliament, mainly because of dissatisfaction with the "guarantee" clause on the Northern Ireland border, and it was only after the two sides negotiated and reached the Northern Ireland Protocol that the obstacles were finally removed for the completion of Britain's exit from the European Union. In other words, without the Northern Ireland border "guarantee" clause, the obstacles to Britain's exit from the EU would have been removed. In other words, without the drag of the Northern Ireland border issue, the process of Britain's exit from the European Union would not have been so tortuous. This paper starts from the perspective of border studies and tries to find the answer to the Anglo-European relationship from the historical evolution of the Northern Ireland border issue.