Northern Irish students like me are fully aware of the dangers of no-deal Brexit – we’re not disengaged, we’re terrified

“The New Beginning”, was the front cover of the Irish Independent the day after the Good Friday Agreement was finally agreed in 1998. I was two-years-old at the time of the agreement. I am among a generation of young people who have only known peace but have grown up with constant reminders of the consequences of violence. I am among the generation who were supposed to reap the rewards of the peace agreement and a new dawn. However, the increasing possibility of the UK leaving the European Union without a deal has changed all of this, particularly with the increasing likelihood of a hard border on this island. That new beginning seems to be moving further and further away.

Young people in NI, like me, who were born after the ceasefire, have still had the legacy of The Troubles passed onto them. More people have died from suicide since 1998 than died during the conflict as a result of the violence. The mental health crisis that pervades the whole community in NI is just one example of how far we are yet to go in the pursuit of stability and prosperity.

Young people and everyone else in Northern Ireland deserve the peace dividend we were promised. We deserve a future free from sectarian division and violence and a future that provides the educational and economic opportunities that we believed we would have more than twenty years after the Good Friday Agreement. A no-deal Brexit would undoubtedly destroy this hope.

A no-deal Brexit would almost certainly require a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, restricting the mobility of people, goods and services. Overnight, infrastructure and personnel could be placed on the border to carry out inspections on customs or single market regulatory matters. Aside from the obvious symbolism of physical infrastructure, it would also cause untold misery for people, students and apprentices living in border communities on one side but who work and are educated on the other side of the border.

A recently published NI Department for the Economy report stated that a no-deal Brexit could put at risk at least 40,000 jobs in Northern Ireland. This would have a seismic impact on the opportunity for young people to gain employment after they complete their studies, with potentially 40,000 extra people unemployed and applying for the very few job vacancies there will likely be. This will simply increase the “brain drain” that already exists in NI, with large swathes of our graduates leaving our shores, unlikely to return.

The max-fac unicorn, which some are putting forward as a panacea to prevent a hard border, is so untested that there can be no guarantee it would work, and therefore, it will almost certainly leave us with a hard border and border infrastructure mess to deal with after any max-fac no-deal Brexit. This would mean further uncertainty on the economy, jobs and cross-border mobility at a time when young people are looking for a positive approach and opportunities for the years ahead, after quite a few bleak few years with no devolved government and chaos being the only consistent factor regarding Brexit.

In all the talk about Brexit deals, it’s important that there is recognition that the best deal is the one we currently have as members of the EU, with its full access on trading, education and research opportunities. The prospect of no deal simply doesn’t bear thinking about, that’s why it must be ruled out. The Machiavellian attempt to push through a no deal by suspending parliament demonstrates a significant disregard for peace and stability in Northern Ireland.

Peace in NI was hard-fought and hard-won, preservation of that peace must also be hard-fought. The ongoing mental health crisis and the high-level paramilitary violence at present only serve to highlight how fragile our peace is. Plunging NI into even more economic misery and despair, will only make NI more unstable and threaten the future of my generation who were promised a new beginning. Politicians must stop playing games with our futures and must rule out a no-deal Brexit and a hard border.

Robert Murtagh is president of NUS-USI