Making sense of Brexit’s challenges to Economic Citizenship

Dr Leslie Budd (OU) Managing the process of the United Kingdom (UK) exiting from the European Union (EU) for Northern Ireland (NI) is the most complex and challenging one of all the UK territories. It is the only part of the UK with a contiguous border with another EU Member State that is also a member of the Eurozone. The benefits include: an all island of Ireland single market; the second largest market for NI trade; close cross-border Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and economic co-operation; and, a common travel area. If the NI economy is not to be damaged and its economic citizenship and governance undermined permanently, a bespoke Brexit agreement may be an imperative. This presentation analyses the alternative scenarios as club goods and proposes the most efficacious one for NI. It first analyses the performance of the NI economy and identifies the likely impacts of Brexit in the medium-term. Second, it refers to more spatially distributed key sectors to exemplify the potential consequences of Brexit for the whole of the island of Ireland. Third, it examines how the border between the two parts of the island of Ireland could become socio-economic beyond a physical one. Finally, it assesses how economic citizenship could be altered across the whole island of Ireland and what forms could emerge and their spatial settings. In this presentation, “economic citizenship” is defined as the inclusion of citizens in the allocation, distribution and stabilisation of resources, to enhance their socio-economic welfare and well-being in the territories they inhabit and shape.  The presentation concludes speculating on the types of governance arrangements that potentially would need to be instituted in order to sustain economic citizenship for both parts of the island of Ireland.  This seminar took place on 25 October 2017 Policy Briefing Presentation