Brexit’s Border fallout could destabilise communities, says ex-NI police chief

The consequences of Brexit on the Border has the “real potential to destabilise communities, increase tension and inevitably put additional pressure on policing”, the North’s former chief constable Hugh Orde has warned.

“I hope the uncertainty created by these political failures are not seen as an opportunity by that tiny minority who want to drag us backwards,” said Mr Orde.

Mr Orde, who was the head of the PSNI from 2002-09, delivered the second annual Seamus Mallon lecture in Belfast on Thursday. The lecture was organised by the John and Pat Hume Foundation in memory of Mr Mallon, the former deputy leader of the SDLP who was deputy first minister of Northern Ireland from 1998-2001, and who died in 2020.

Vice-chairwoman of the Hume Foundation Dawn Purvis said both men had “demonstrated extraordinary leadership in challenging times” and Mallon had played a “critical role in the transformation of politics, policing and justice in NI and was a key trust builder in the negotiations that led to the Good Friday Agreement.”

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In his speech, Mr Orde addressed the challenges facing policing and what he described as the “fragile peace” in Northern Ireland, and said that, post-Brexit, the Border was “a cause for deep concern.”

Since the UK’s vote to leave the EU, he said, “the Border between the North and South, that enjoyed a degree of constructive ambiguity facilitated by shared membership of the EU, is a cause for deep concern. The utterly foreseeable complications based on a land border have come to the fore.

“It is not for me to comment on the tactics deployed by the different political parties to deal with the current arrangements that were agreed by the Government during the leave negotiations, but the fall-out has in my judgment the real potential to destabilise communities, increase tension and inevitably put additional pressure on policing,” he said.

The former chief constable was critical of the absence of an Assembly or Executive in Northern Ireland, saying that in trying to solve this “the lack of local governance clearly doesn’t help” and was pessimistic about the chances of a resolution.

“Trying to fix a problem that was so blindingly obvious to anyone that had the most basic understanding of what leaving the EU would mean post-event will be difficult, bordering on impossible.”

He said the fact concerns had been “dismissed as ‘scaremongering’ was contemptible, yet this is what happened”.

Troubles legacy

Mr Orde also voiced concerns about attempts to address the legacy of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, saying that he “continued to watch for progress on this most challenging of issues but remain pessimistic that an organised way forward” would “happen any time soon.”

He said he “remained convinced” that if the Historical Enquiries Team (HET) “had been allowed to run its course many more families would have had more information about their case.”

The HET was set up by Mr Orde in 2005 to examine all unsolved murders relating to the Troubles and produced reports for families on a substantial number of killings but was wound up in 2014 following an unfavourable review by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary.

Controversial legislation is currently making its way through Parliament will end all Troubles investigations, civil cases and inquests from next year and replace it with a truth recovery body which will offer immunity from prosecution to perpetrators in return for co-operation.

Mr Orde, who was a supporter of the proposals for dealing with the past put forward in the 2009 Eames Bradley report, said it should have “received the attention and implementation it deserved” and asked why it had not been taken forward. “The answer is sadly lack of political will and leadership,” he said.

“It is interesting to note that most reports on how to deal with this tricky issue remain gathering dust on shelves and achieving nothing.

“One thing I do know is that this issue will not go away, and time is not a healer to many.”

Mr Orde, who went on to become the President of the UK’s Association of Chief Police Officers after leaving the PSNI, stressed the importance of the 1999 Patten Report into policing which reformed the RUC and said it was an “excellent policing model that has far wider application.”

He said “something radical” needed to be done to broaden diversity in police forces in Britain and to address other challenge, asking if it was “now time for a serious national debate on this” and said the example of the 50/50 recruitment to the PSNI and the accountability structures introduced as a result of the Patten report could be a useful template.