According to Senator George Mitchell, former chairman of the multi-party talks culminating in the Good Friday Agreement, Northern Ireland is facing the most critical political moment in its relatively short history as it prepares to leave the European Union. The UK’s scheduled departure from the EU in March next year has raised some sensitive questions over its likely effect on Northern Ireland’s fractured peace process.

Research recently published by BrexitLawNI, a joint venture by Queen’s University Belfast, Ulster University and the Northern Ireland Human Rights Committee on the Administration of Justice, concluded that Brexit poses a risk to peace. It highlighted “significant concerns amongst the PSNI and other security officials that Brexit will have a deleterious effect on their capacity to counter organised and cyber-crime, as well as dissident republican violence.” It outlined the concerns of Chief Constable, George Hamilton:

The last thing we would want is any infrastructure around the border because there is something symbolic about it and it becomes a target for violent dissident republicans. Our assessment is that they would be a target because it would be representative of the state and in their minds fair game for attack.

Some UK politicians acknowledge this threat and take it seriously. Stephen Pound, Labour’s shadow minister for Northern Ireland, called the future of the border a “matter of life and death.” That his comments were so widely picked up perhaps reflects the relative lack of seriousness with which many politicians in the UK treat the deeper issues of the Irish border. In other words, the things that make the border an issue in Brexit negotiations in the first place

It certainly makes a contrast with Boris Johnson’s latest ‘plan’ for Brexit. He insists that under his so-called ‘Super Canada’ plan there would be no need for any infrastructure at the border, despite similar proposals consistently having been dismissed. He proposes reneging on the UK’s own commitments on the ‘backstop’ in the draft Withdrawal Agreement, complaining that the border issue had been allowed to gain “undeserved” prominence in negotiations.

It took a local comedian, none other than Patrick Kielty, to point out the absurdity of the former Foreign Secretary’s position:

A return to the days of violence may be unthinkable. Northern Ireland has reimagined its place in the world and has been recognised for its remarkable progress towards peace on the global stage. But as Kielty sensibly points out, destabilising political decisions like Brexit can be exploited by those who want the Pandora’s Box to be reopened.

Every effort must be made to close the lid. That means pursuing an exit that protects the commitments the UK and EU have already made. As Senator Mitchell argues, a hard Brexit along the lines that Mr Johnson is proposing is “in no one’s interest, especially with respect to the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland.”

At the Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham, Theresa May said she was “cross” with Boris Johnson. “He wanted to tear up our guarantee to the people of Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland is part of the UK,” she told the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg.

It’s up to the Prime Minister and her government stand by their guarantee.