Brexit has left Northern Ireland’s Chinese community confused and divided, much like the rest of Britain
- Britain’s exit from the European Union raises questions among those who have made Northern Ireland their home
- Anna Lo, the Hong Kong-born former Alliance Party politician, talks about the backstop, borders and the Democratic Unionist Party
She may be retired but Anna Lo is as outspoken as ever. Brexit, backstops, borders, racism, inequality – and especially her political nemesis, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) – all suffer a tongue-lashing when we meet over cappuccinos in Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland, to discuss a political world gone mad.
“I haaate the DUP,” says the 68-year-old firebrand ex-politician, her voice raised, scrunching up her face as if she’s just swallowed a bitter pill, to illustrate her enmity for the hitherto little-known political group that has a controlling hand on Brexit and the future for more than 500 million Europeans.
The DUP is the largest political party in Northern Ireland – a constituent nation of the United Kingdom – and unexpectedly became kingmaker after British Prime Minister Theresa May’s Conservative government lost its majority in the 2017 general election. May reluctantly had to join forces with the Christian-right DUP and its 10 London parliamentarians to keep her party in power.
In the 2016 Brexit referendum, a majority of people in Northern Ireland (55.8 per cent) voted to remain in the European Union, but the Eurosceptic DUP voted to leave. Combining with arch Brexiteers in Westminster, it has been using its veto in Brexit talks to block May’s controversial withdrawal agreement with Brussels, elements of which it finds unacceptable.
“The DUP are old-school conservatives, hard-line bigots who do not see the economic benefits and the social cohesion that a customs and trade union with the EU brings. I really hope the DUP go down in the history books as the party that […] wrecked the future of the generations that come after us,” says Lo, her hands tightening into fists. “As you can tell, I really hate the DUP,” she reiterates, in an adopted Northern Irish accent. She then bursts into nervous giggles.
Aware that everyone within earshot in the small cafe has been privy to her outburst, Hong Kong-born Lo looks around, shrinking into the neck of her jumper and furtively peering out from under her fringe, to scan the coffee-sipping, baguette-munching, eavesdropping clientele; with a population of 1.8 million, Northern Ireland offers all the anonymity of a fishing village in Hong Kong’s New Territories.
