Northern Ireland and the UK Constitution

"Since the UK's withdrawal from the EU, the constitutional position of Northern Ireland within the Union has endured an unusual level of attention. An effort to understand or explain 'Brexit's Northern Ireland problem', and its consequences, has seen Northern Ireland given greater prominence than normal. In Northern Ireland in the UK Constitution, Lisa Claire Whitten sets out a concise history of Northern Ireland through four pivotal moments - the 1920-72 Unionist led NI governments, the following 30 years of bitter conflicts, the 1998 Belfast/Good Friday Agreement, and the 2016 referendum on UK's membership of the EU. Considering each of the moments in the broader setting of UK constitutional norms and narratives, she addresses the exceptional constitutional characteristics of Northern Ireland and the ways in which these have often resulted in a 'blindspot' analyses of the Union. This short book also considers the implications of Brexit and the constitutional impacts and shifts it has brought to Northern Ireland, providing an overview of the unique post-Brexit position of Northern Ireland as the touching point between the internal markets of the EU and UK, and discussing the actual and potential constitutional repercussions this is likely to have. Written for a non-specialist audience, Northern Ireland in the UK Constitution is a comprehensive yet accessible introduction for those who want to understand Northern Ireland as a constitutional entity."

Lisa Claire Whitten is a research fellow at Queen's University Belfast working on an ESRC-funded project that analyses arrangements for governance in Northern Ireland after Brexit. In 2021 she completed her doctorate on 'Brexit and the Northern Ireland constitution'. Prior to entering academia Whitten held a variety of posts in the public sector including working for an MP in Westminster and in the Office of the Northern Ireland Executive in Brussels. Whitten has a first-class honours degree in Politics from Newcastle University and a masters in Comparative Ethnic Conflict awarded with distinction from Queen's University Belfast.