A thread on the Good Friday Agreement. I mean, everyone's talking about it after all. Is it really in danger? Let's look at that...

The Good Friday Agreement is made up of two parts – the Multi-party agreement between most of the political parties (but not the DUP) and the British-Irish Agreement between the two governments.

This second Agreement is the international treaty between sovereign states, registered with the UN. The British-Irish Agreement’s function is to uphold the multi-party agreement. So changing the treaty would logically require a new multi-party agreement.

The issue of membership of the EU is a reserved matter for Westminster, consequently any impact of withdrawal from the EU is a matter to be dealt with also by Westminster and is not within the legislative gift of devolved administrations in Stormont, Holyrood or the Senedd.

The Good Friday Agreement was premised on EU membership by both Britain and Ireland although it could not bind either country to maintaining that membership, nor (as a court has decided) could it be used to prevent the triggering of Article 50.