Brexit would cause 'turmoil' and 'radically change' relations with Ireland, says former Irish President

Sir Anthony Bailey with Dr Mary McAleese

Launching a report entitled "Brexit: The Irish Dimension" published by British Influence in conjunction with Anthony Bailey Consulting, Professor Mary McAleese says Ireland's peace and prosperity in danger if Brexit wins. She accuses Vote Leave of "wishful thinking at best and bluffing at worse."

Mary McAleese, Ulster-born and long-serving former President of Ireland (1997-2011) and now Distinguished Professor in Irish Studies at St Mary's University Twickenham, will say that a vote for Brexit will cause the greatest upset for Ireland in living memory.

Claiming a "legitimate and well-founded" right to intervene in the referendum debate, she will urge the 600,000 Irish citizens resident in the UK to vote Remain. She will urge the British people to avoid a choice for 'drift' and loss of influence in Europe.

She will urge British voters to understand that the benefits in Anglo-Irish relations now taken for granted could be put in peril. The future of 400,000 jobs and the open road border between the republic and Northern Ireland would be uncertain.

She said: "The concerns of Ireland are legitimate and well-founded. They involve the economy, trade, immigration controls, the hardening of the land border, security, the weakening over time of the excellent current relationship between Ireland and the United Kingdom, the impact on the peace process and the impact on European development of Britain's voice being absent from the European Union table."

"Reassurances that nothing will change... are wishful thinking at best and bluffing at worse."

The report launched at Church House, Westminster, with Lord Peter Hain, the former Northern Ireland Secretary, other parliamentarians, diplomats and business leaders, outlines the top seven problems that would upset Anglo-Irish relations in the event of Brexit:

For Ireland, the main consequences would be:

• the impact on its economy of the loss of the UK's privileged access to the EU Single Market, most particularly for Northern Ireland's businesses in Ireland, the rest of the EU and in those 60 countries with which the EU has free trade agreements;

• the disruption to its economy and society from the end of the free movement Common Travel Area and the reintroduction of border controls;

• the ending of the current extradition arrangements with the Republic of Ireland (i.e. the European Arrest Warrant) making it harder for terrorist suspects to be extradited from one jurisdiction to another;

• disruption to the peace process, damage to relationships between North and South as well as the end of the relevant EU-funded programmes.

• potential disruption to the all-Ireland electricity market and the energy relationship with the UK;

• a diminution of the Irish influence in the EU because of the absence of the UK from key debates (and votes) about EU policy, especially those relating to trade liberalisation and competitiveness;

• a fissure on Anglo-Irish relations as Britain and Ireland would have chosen profoundly different paths without a guarantee that current relations would remain as they are.

Anthony Bailey, Co-President of British Influence and Chairman of Anthony Bailey Consulting which sponsored the report, says: "As a British and Irish citizen I know that the people of Ireland, north and south, have a vivid interest in the question of whether or not the UK leaves the EU, for reasons of politics, culture, faith and family ties as much as economics. Like so many others with a stake in the Anglo-Irish relationship, I don't want anything to derail the enormous progress we have seen over the last 20 years. Our mutual membership of the EU has enabled us to deal better with contentious issues of the past and to move our islands and its peoples forward and I hope that that reflected and fully appreciated in the referendum next week."