Mary McAleese warns about risk to status of Irish in Britain

Irish people could become outsiders in Britain if there is a vote for Brexit in next week's referendum, former president Mary McAleese has warned.

Addressing an Irish in Britain event in London on Wednesday, she said Irish people entitled to vote in Britain should take heed of the emphasis laid on immigration by the Leave campaign.

“If any Irish person thinks that they are exempt from the box called ‘immigrants’, let them think again. When people talk about stopping immigration, controlling immigration, we are the outsiders here,” she said.

“Our people, the 600,000 Irish-born immigrants, the day after, God forbid, the UK leaves the European Union, they are non-nationals. They are immigrants and will be subject to whatever controls will be placed on immigration,” she said.

Travel arrangements

Leave campaigners have insisted that the Common Travel Area between Britain and Ireland can continue and the Border can remain open after the UK leaves the EU.

But Dr McAleese said that such clams had no basis in fact, adding that any attempt to create special bilateral arrangements for Irish citizens could run into difficulties under international law.

“Every person who believes in a Brexit who tells you that the seamless to-ing and fro-ing without migration controls between Ireland and Britain will continue after a Brexit, I’m telling you now, that’s either bluster or bluff because they do not know,” she said.

“But I know absolutely with moral certainty that after Britain leaves the European Union, the Irish fall into that box of potential immigrants and outsiders.

“There will be rules for them and good luck to those who want to create a bilateral agreement exclusively for the Irish.”

Earlier, David Cameron told the House of Commons that, if Britain votes to leave the EU next week, the only alternative to immigration controls on the Border would be to introduce checks on people arriving from both parts of Ireland.

“If we were to leave – the leave campaigners want to make a big issue about our borders – we will have a land border between Britain outside the European Union and the Republic of Ireland inside the European Union,” he said.

“Therefore, you can only have new border controls between the Republic and Northern Ireland or, which I would regret hugely, you would have to have some sort of checks on people as they left Belfast or other parts of Northern Ireland to come to the rest of the United Kingdom.”