Irish actor Cillian Murphy has spoken out about Brexit, and the stance British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has taken over the issue of the Irish border.
Boris Johnson is currently refusing to renegotiate the terms of Britain’s departure from the European Union unless the Irish backstop is taken off the table.
The backstop is supposed to ensure there is no hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic, as laid out in the Good Friday Agreement signed in 1998 to bring an end to the Troubles.
However, Johnson views it as a method for the EU to keep Britain in the customs union indefinitely.
Murphy was speaking to the Guardian newspaper about the success of the hit BBC gangster series Peaky Blinders.
However, when the issue of Brexit came up and the impact it could have on Ireland, it soon sparked Murphy into speaking his mind.
He said: “The Good Friday Agreement was predicated on there not being a border and to think that you can hold Ireland to ransom, you can’t.
“Listen, if you and I are in a club and there are 28 members of the club and I decided to leave, why would I get preferential treatment? Doesn’t make any sense.”
“And if Ireland is a member of that club and me leaving undermines their whole set-up and the peace they have, it doesn’t make any sense, and it’s not equitable or fair and it’s because the whole thing was sold on a bunch of misinformation.”
The 28 Days Later star moved back to Ireland from London four years ago, and said he was pleased to be living in Dublin, on a “very liberal island that is an outlier”.
He was also critical of the Brexit vote, and the lack of clarity in what is would actually mean for Britain. He said: “It was a binary choice. There’s no nuance, you can’t put any of that into a referendum. You can say, ‘yes, we’ll leave the EU’, but no one knew how.”
Written by Andrew Moore