I lived in NI during the Troubles. The country has come a long way since then.
I do not think the country will return to violence, but there is a small yet significant possibility that a hard brexit could, as suggested create new sectarian fault lines. Especially if there are economic problems in the north, whose economy has improved exponentially since the 80's.
People who are being flippant about it have a poor understanding of the issue.
The bitter people will remain bitter. They don't have the resources nor the desire to shit on their own doorstep any more. So long as we have access to both the British and Irish passports, Brexit, however hard or soft, is really a win/win scenario for us. There will be new calls for an Irish Unity poll, which I don't see getting a majority vote, but my generation is practically over it. Only a few fanatics wouldn't respect the decision, provided there was a clause allowing for a poll to re-join the union after a period of time.
Hard Brexit is going to put up a hard border between UK and Ireland. In other words, violate the Good Friday Agreement. Now, that won't exactly bring back the Troubles in full force, but if you think that hardline Irish nationalists won't jump at it the moment it happens, well... For the sake of anyone living there, I hope you are not in for a surprise.
I’m not discriminative or think that one race is superior as all are/should be equal, if you were to let anyone come in and overpopulate countries then the economy will go to shit, the uk isn’t a big an island as America is so a massive surge of immigrants without any sort of control will lead to all sorts of chaos, Hell I’ve recently moved to a different country and I had no problems or felt insulted against with tighter checks because I was from a different country.
You have no idea how fast a country can become split and radicalized. You are three weeks from murdering each other. The sectarian fault lines are all still there. The organizations are mostly still there. All it takes is a handful of atrocities and some skillful propaganda. That's what happened in the Balkans.
You take the peace dividend for granted. That was won at a very high cost for all those involved.
Whats the worst thing about the whole Johnson leaving and May having a hard time keeping her position as PM? -> that the negotiations need to be finished in october. Yes, they have less then 3 more months before the Brexit will be by default a hard Brexit without any agreements causing huge issue's.
And why before october? Because all EU memberstates and the UK will have to ratify the laws that govern those Brexit agreements. And since they will need 6 months prior to the march 2019 end date, the agreements will have to be signed before/in october.
So if these current issue's are not resolved quickly, and/or May gets to be replaced by a hard brexit PM (and so the already made deals surrounding the soft Brexit are ned to be reworked), the results will be so disasterous for the UK that these issue's are way bigger then most seem to realise. It is like a few months away from either a good ending in wich the UK lives, or a bad ending in wich total chaos will ensue.
And noone can say wether these issue's will happen, but we can all say that noone wants a Brexit without an agreement due to the results of that being way to big. That 5% VAT on tampons that was mentioned is childsplay compared to the complete blockage of trade that will happen when no agreements are met.
The hardest Brexit will put a hard border for trade and EU nationals only. There will still be free movement for both UK and Ireland nationals. You'd be a fool to think otherwise. At worst, you'd need to take your passport with you if you wanted to take a drip to Donegal for the day. And of course plenty of people will be pissed out of principal, but a return to the state of the troubles is highly unlikely. A few unsettled individuals might cause a stir, or the border itself might take a hit during construction, but you won't see protestants getting shot for being protestant - considering many Catholics votes for Brexit. My girlfriend and her entire family are prime examples.
My dad lived in NI during the troubles, some of my family still live there.
As far as I can gather from the UK government's total failure to get the DUP and SF to agree to form a government there for the last, what, 18 months now presents a significantly bigger threat to peace in Ireland than Brexit ever could.
I voted Remain but I don't want another referendum. There are some big problems with this:
1) The precedent for overturning democratic decisions would be a very dangerous one and would give too much power to right-wing authoritarian agencies in future.
2) If it passed again, that would be it. We'd be stuck with Brexit for a generation. The polls do not indicate a decisive victory at this juncture.
There has to be a reasonable period of time between this and the next referendum, probably at least 8 years. There also has to be a huge mandate for re-joining. Proceeding with another referendum before then would likely be counter-productive.