Could a ‘frontstop’ solve the Brexit backstop problem?

Like many people growing up in Northern Ireland, I closed my eyes to the dirty, nasty low-grade civil war that we called ‘The Troubles’. But when John Major’s government averred itself in the 1993 Downing Street Declaration to have “no selfish strategic or economic interest” in Northern Ireland, I pricked up my ears. Events moved quickly from this point. A few years on, in 1998, Tony Blair gave unction to the historic Good Friday Agreement (GFA). Ireland amended its constitution abandoning its claim to sovereignty over the entire island; the United Kingdom recognised the right of a majority of people in Northern Ireland to determine whether it remains part of the UK or merges with Ireland. Both governments signed an international treaty, the “British Irish Agreement” of 1998, and both jurisdictions passed acts of parliament embedding the GFA in their national legislation. As a result, people living in Northern Ireland could see themselves legitimately as Irish, British, or both.