Considering how much Brexit has been talked about in Northern Ireland of late, it may seem surprising that in the villages of Belcoo and Blacklion, on either side of the border, the first casualty is on southern territory.

Twelve months after the Guardian visited this part of the Fermanagh/Cavan frontier during fierce campaigning in the run-up to the EU referendum, the clearest impact of the Brexit effect can be seen in the boarded-up post office just inside the Irish Republic. Staff at the Market House, Blacklion’s pristine tourist centre, point out that the owner of the An Post shop could not keep competing with the Spar store in Belcoo, just a minute’s stroll north across the bridge between Irish and UK territory.

Shoppers in the south are now buying staple goods in Belcoo because of the pound-euro exchange rate fluctuations that have made prices in Northern Ireland far cheaper than in Blacklion in the Republic.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Tom Elliott, the Ulster Unionist candidate for Fermanagh and South Tyrone, canvassing in Enniskillen. Photograph: Paul Faith/AFP/Getty Images

“Four pints of milk in Belcoo costs only €2.28, while for two litres [three and a half pints] in Blacklion it now costs €2.40. People go to where the bargains are and at present they are in the north. No wonder businesses over here can’t compete,” says one member of Market House staff. .

Whatever the practical impact, though, some say that local politics has yet to catch up with the Brexit vote, even as election day looms. In Fermanagh and South Tyrone, the parliamentary border constituency that includes Belcoo, the sitting Ulster Unionist MP until parliament was dissolved insists that it hasn’t been a big issue – even though most people here voted to remain.

Twelve miles from Belcoo in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, Tom Elliott says he is not pressed on the doorstep about what the leave vote will mean. Voters are “more concerned about potholes on local roads than Brexit”, he adds.

Elliott is canvassing in the lower-middle-class Chanterhill area, where a father and son building a new fence around the front garden of a semi-detached house agree with him. David Higgins, who comes from the border village of Maguiresbridge, says he is more worried about “the waste of money up at Stormont” (the currently deadlocked Northern Ireland assembly) than he is about Brexit.

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His son Aaron interjects – but not to bring up the EU. “I think one of the most important issues in this election is the struggle for gay marriage equality,” he says. He is referring to the blocking of legal gay marriage in Northern Ireland by most (but not all) unionist politicians.

After some indecision, Elliott eventually supported Brexit. Still, he has his own concerns about the aftermath. He is firmly opposed to the prospect of a “hard border” between Northern Ireland and the Republic – a possibility that has caused much anxiety since the referendum.



“I am totally against a hard border,” he says. But perhaps the lack of doorstep concern is because few believe it will come about. “I don’t think you will find anyone in this constituency, unionist or otherwise, who wants a return to that. Nor do I think it’s going to happen. Northern Ireland has moved on and I believe that all the talk about a ‘hard border’ is hyped up for party political purposes.”

To help Elliott retain the seat for unionism, the Democratic Unionist party has stepped aside to give him a free run. The Protestant Orange Order, meanwhile, is said to be running a disciplined campaign to ensure voters are registered across Fermanagh and South Tyrone.

Elliott’s main rival for the seat is the former Sinn Féin MP for the constituency, Michelle Gildernew, who will boycott Westminster if she triumphs. She rejects the notion that Brexit is not playing on voters’ minds in the run-up to 8 June.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Michelle Gildernew, Sinn Féin’s candidate for Fermanagh and South Tyrone, canvassing in the village of Kinawley with election worker Mick McCormick. Photograph: Paul Faith/AFP/Getty Images

“Brexit is the big issue in this election,” she says. “The sitting MP does not represent the views of the people of this constituency, where 59% voted to remain in the EU. This constituency is heavily reliant on the agri-food sector and tourism. Our economic future is at stake. People are worried about jobs being lost and small local border roads being closed.”



Like all other Sinn Féin politicians, Gildernew sees Brexit and anger over it as a means of promoting a united Ireland as an alternative way to remain in the EU.

“It is clear that the British government has no concern for the people of the North of Ireland,” she says. “That was clear when they called an election in the middle of crucial negotiations to re-establish the institutions in the north. Those pursuing a hard Tory Brexit do not understand or care about the implications for those of us who live in Fermanagh and Tyrone. As a result, more and more people are beginning to look towards Irish reunification as being a real possibility.”



The overriding issue, however, in this most marginal constituency in Northern Ireland is the old binary, sectarian one: the zero-sum game of orange versus green.



Jimmy Quinn, the Enniskillen-born veteran trade unionist with Unite, says that for him there are more important issues, ranging from deindustrialisation to fracking and an appalling lack of infrastructure, but the outcome of the election will still be down to which side of the sectarian divide gets the most voters out on the day.

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Quinn lists the area’s significant problems. “Jobs have been lost in so many sectors down here, broadband in this region is a joke and the constituency is the most isolated in the UK in terms of infrastructure,” he says. “But will that have a bearing on the main parties battling it out? The answer is no. Sadly, it will be down to the old binary ‘us versus them’ politics on the day. Even Brexit is going to be lost in terms of that battle.”



Lauri McCusker agrees with Quinn’s analysis of what will really count here in the election. He only has to look out of his window from Fermanagh House, where he is director of the Fermanagh Trust charity, to be reminded that his constituency is a prisoner of history.

He points out a hilltop in the distance, where Heber MacMahon, the bishop of Clogher who led the Catholic rebellion in Ulster, was beheaded by Cromwell’s army in 1650. He mentions the Lakeland Forum, a spot on the banks of the river Erne, which now hosts a leisure centre but was once where the IRA launched gun and bomb attacks on off-duty soldiers and police officers.

“History haunts this place and there is no getting away from it,” McCusker says. Likewise, when he thinks about the prospect of a hard border, he thinks of his uncle Joe, whose farmland was taken by the British army (he was paid compensation) for the construction of a military watch tower.

“There was always burning resentment about the loss of that field to the British military,” he says. “If things like that started to happen again then it would be disastrous. That is why Brexit cannot mean a hard border. No one here wants a return of those days.”



























