THE UK and Ireland's membership of the European Union “laid the groundwork” for the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, a former Gwent MP has said.

Paul Murphy served as Torfaen 1987 until 2015, during which time he served in the Northern Ireland Office and was central to developing part of the historic Good Friday Agreement, which was signed 20 years ago next month.

And, speaking in the House of Lords earlier this week, the ex-Labour MP, now Lord Murphy, said the UK and Ireland’s membership of the European Union had played a key role in developing the agreement.

Lord Murphy said “there can be no doubt” the agreement was “underpinned by that common membership of the European Union”.

“Indeed, the preamble to the Good Friday agreement says that the two governments wished ‘to develop still further the unique relationship between their peoples and the close co-operation between their countries as friendly neighbours and as partners in the European Union’.”

The Labour peer added: “In my view the agreement would not have been successful if the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom had not entered the European Union together in 1973.

“That meant that time after time, day after day, even hour after hour, in Brussels and elsewhere, the two governments could talk at ministerial and official level.

“That talking meant that the old bad relations between the two countries faded away, as, of course, did the border itself.

“The blurring of the border as a result of the events of the last 20 years has been hugely significant in not just economic and security terms but in psychological terms, because that border has gone in the minds of both nationalists and unionists.

“Its resurrection would be an absolute disaster.”

One of the key uncertainties in the Brexit negotiations has been the status of the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. As this will also be a border with the European Union, it is likely some areas of border control will have to be put in place. But many have raised concerns this will breach the Good Friday Agreement, which was signed on April 10, 1998, and damage the peace process.

Lord Murphy said: “We cannot allow the Brexit negotiations to put at risk the great worth and good that has come to Northern Ireland and, indeed, to Ireland and the United Kingdom, as a consequence of what we did two decades ago.”