Both sides are becoming more polarised (PAUL FAITH/AFP via Getty Images)
The past century, since Northern Ireland was cut out of the whole green cloth of the Irish island, has seen violence flare and subside, and now lies largely dormant. But dormant is not dead: the IRA Army Council still exists, and is believed by police, north and south, to wield some influence on its legal form, Sinn Fein, presently the most popular political party in Ireland.
Yet reconstitution of a fighting force would take some doing, not least because its recruiting ground, northern Catholics, are more prosperous and less easy to mobilise than their parents and grandparents were in the late sixties. And mobilise for what? Polls continually show that a majority do not want, at least not soon, a United Ireland — the IRA and Sinn Fein’s reason for existence. In any case, Irish nationalists of every stripe now see themselves as in the ascendant, and thus believe that political pressure and elections will bring nationalist majorities in parliaments, both in Ireland and in the North. This is similar to the belief held by Scottish nationalists: both groups have faith that youthful cohorts will support radical change – unity for Ireland, secession for Scotland – and will, when the cagey elders remove themselves, bring victory .
Nationalists believe that Ireland’s geography is destiny, and that unionists should see that the island has room for only one nation state. The view isn’t a Sinn Fein preserve: Simon Coveney the Irish Foreign Minister in the Fianna Fail government described its formation this as a “terrible mistake (which) caused extraordinary division”.
Behind this view, overtly or by implication, stand the Catholic Church, the European Union, all the Irish political parties and — at times the heaviest guns — American politicians with Irish forebears. They, from the Kennedys through Ronald Reagan to Joe Biden, have felt empowered to intervene in the business of the British government to secure a greater all-Irish dimension to Northern Ireland’s politics, a tendency not confined to American leaders of Irish descent, and one always couched in terms of securing better relationships and lasting peace.
With these centres of influence now must be counted most of the Irish commentariat and intellectuals — men and women who command space in the Republic’s newspapers, talk shows and opinion websites and blogs. The leader among them is Fintan O’Toole, a writer with a large Anglophone audience for his commentaries in the Irish Times, The Guardian, the New York Review of Books and beyond. His book, Heroic Failure (2018), pictures Britain in masochistic but rebellious submission to a Brussels dominatrix, a posture he believes had been deliberately prepared for by the well-timed publication of Fifty Shades of Grey in 2011.
His visceral dislike of Brexit and by extension the present British state is amplified by other powerful voices, such as Bobby McDonagh, a former Irish ambassador to the UK and a reliable defender of all the European Union does and says. They view the unionists’ Euroscepticism, and their anger at the Protocol which retains large EU control over their border with Ireland, as evidence of reaction.
The columnist Emma de Souza sees Protocol denial as “chest-pounding bravado and posturing”. Pat Leahy, the Irish Times’ political editor, believes Sinn Fein is a government-in-waiting — an increasingly common trope among Irish columnists. O’Toole, a long-time and continuing critic of Sinn Fein’s “amnesia” about the IRA’s decades of massacre, torture and crime, still believes that it should be part of a “progressive” government coalition. A large exception: Ireland’s most remarkable novelist, Colm Toibin, who in a Guardian column asked of the anti-British, pro-United Ireland/Sinn Fein crowd: “do they want to import sectarian hatred and the politics of perpetual grievance from the north into the south”?
Sinn Fein, at 32% in the opinion polls, is 10 points ahead of both Fine Gael and Fianna Fail, governing together in a unique coalition. Leahy salutes the party’s “waves of energy, commitment and conviction”.
For unionists, Sinn Fein is remembered as having other qualities. In his essay, the deputy editor of the Belfast daily News Letter Ben Lowry laments that IRA leaders, including the late Martin McGuiness, a former head of the Londonderry IRA, were not brought to any kind of justice for the many killings they ordered. He quotes Alan McQuillan, a former assistant chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, as noting that investigators face pressure from both the British and Irish governments “not to pursue those whose arrest would destabilise the peace process”.
The force and power of Irish commentary has spurred the unionist intelligentsia to a collective response. In a collection of essays out this week — The Idea of the Union — they give tongue to defiance of nationalists’ growing assumption that the territory’s time as British possession is up, and that unionists must sooner or later recognise it.
Thus two sets of highly educated, strongly motivated, radically conflicting groups lay out their respective stalls. On the Northern side, this comes with a painful recognition of a subaltern status. “Nationalism,” writes Arthur Aughey, among the most lucid of Unionist intellectuals, “can mobilise its friends and unionism has few or no friends — and, in the text of the present post-Brexit protocol, has been betrayed once more by those it believed were its friends” — in this case, Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
Note the “once more”: it is an insistent theme in the essays, that unionists, the most demonstratively patriotic of all the national groups which make up the United Kingdom, should, over the long century of the province’s existence, have been so grievously disregarded by their own government. The political scientist Geoffrey Sloan highlights a Northern Ireland Office discussion paper of 1972 which insists that all policy on the province must reside within an “Irish Dimension” – instead, Sloan writes, “of defending the integrity of Northern Ireland’s territorial boundaries as part of the British state, a distancing process was set in motion”.
The historian Paul Bew, now a crossbench peer, notes that a “remarkable aspect” of the negotiations over the Northern Ireland Protocol was “the way in which the British government allowed the Irish government to control the narrative”. The former Northern Ireland first minister David (now Lord) Trimble writes that the Protocol , “rips the heart out” of the 1998 Good Friday or Belfast Agreement, which set up a government sharing power between the two main parties, Sinn Fein and the United Unionists (later the Democratic Unionists): “it does so by removing the assurance that democratic consent is needed to make any change to the status of Northern Ireland.”
Leo Varadkar, Taioseach until June 2020 and now Tanaiste (deputy prime minister) to Micheal Martin, is much blamed for being used by the European Union to pile pressure on the British. Ray Bassett, a former head of the Irish Consular Service and now a stern critic of his country’s policies towards Northern Ireland, accuses Varadkar of “misusing the border issue to maintain Brussels control… to display its euro credentials”.
Micheal Martin as Taoiseach has been more emollient than Varadkar: but the issue of the Northern Ireland Protocol prevents any serious softening. The deal, agreed in December 2020, was necessary for a quick agreement on the terms of Brexit, and keeps the movement of goods free from check between north and south, while erecting a new trade border with the UK — retaining the authority of the European Court of Justice over the arrangement, a clear diminution of British sovereignty.
Yesterday, the European Union revealed it would offer “far-reaching” reductions on the checks presently required on goods moving between the British mainland and Northern Ireland: but, in the negotiations to come, will be reluctant to reduce the ECJ’s authority, and thus the wound to Britain’s sovereignty. There is little hope that the Irish government will take the British side on this, or even use its good offices to bring about compromise.
Some of the essayists in The Idea of the Union seek to cut Irish claims down to size — none more forensically than the economist Geoff Gudgin, now an advisor to the Brexit negotiator Lord Frost, who by careful statistical accountancy shows that the Irish claim of possessing one of highest GDPs in Europe, substantially higher than that of the UK, is based on it being one of the greatest of world tax havens. All of the more than 20 writers, inflamed or moderate in their tone, insist on what they see as the core truth: unionism is not to be argued, seduced, persuaded or charmed with any greater success than it was terrorised away.
It is a different culture: prepared to live in friendship (and often doing so, in Northern Irish communities) but not to have unity thrust upon them. If attitudes in the south have become more militant, those in the north have hardened round the old cry: “No Surrender”.
Irish intellectuals, as jealous of their independence as any other such national grouping, now line up with their government’s pro-EU, anti-Brexit, anti-Unionist themes. Katy Hayward, writing in the French journal Etudes Irlandaises, remarks that Irish intellectuals “play an increasingly “functionary” role in debates about “Europe”, in effect “supporting the official position of the Irish government without being given much scope for critiquing or elaborating upon it”.
They are not alone in this. The Scottish National Party enjoys the support of some intellectuals — such as Tom Nairn, the cornerstone of nationalist ideology through his diabolisation of England, the commentator Neil Ascherson and the academics Ben Jackson and Scott Hames. They are fleshed out by enthusiastic support from some English intellectuals: the novelist Will Self, the founder of Open Democracy Anthony Barnett and the writer Paul Mason. And it has nearly all the “creative” community behind it, including two novelists who won the Booker prize, James Kelman in 1989 and Douglas Stuart in 2020. This broad strand of opinion generally sees Irish unity as desirable, without violence if possible.
The well-worn observation of Orwell in England, Your England — that “England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality” — seems to remain substantially true, taking extra strength from the horror with which the intelligentsia, together with the bulk of the middle class, view Brexit. It is a horror which, much magnified, has given the Irish intelligentsia, and their governments, a new lease of anti-British life; and their Northern Irish unionist equivalents a tighter grip on their Britishness.
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SubscribeIntelligentsia sounds a rather generous term for people with an agenda. Intelligent people can see both sides of the argument and analyse dispassionately. A more fitting description might be affluent, imperious indoctrinators.
It will be interesting to see how the Irish intellectuals react to Ireland’s progression from a tax haven to a fully-fledged EU colony.
“Progression” implies that this colonisation hasn’t already happened. But the minute Ireland entered the eurozone, which divorced its currency from national sovereignty, it became a de facto EU colony (in fairness, so did all members of the EZ although, to paraphrase Orwell, some colonies are more equal than others)
Who is the coloniser? The EU is a union of sovereign nations not a colonial power! Not like Britain colonising say India, plundering it of its wealth! Far from pillaging Ireland the EU has paid many millions into the Irish coffers over decades. Granted we are a net contributor now but that is because of the huge economic benefit we gained from membership.
“The EU is a union of sovereign nations not a colonial power!”
You have not the first clue what you’re talking about. If you think a nation can be in the EU and sovereign at the same time, you neither understand the EU or sovereignty.
A spiffing point well made. And the main reason, I and many others, decided to get our coats.
We have our own laws, own courts, own taxation, own government etc etc.. the fact that we have superior courts to answer does not mean we are not sovereign. You answer to the superior courts on human rights, maritime and air rights and have treaties that bind you just like we do. The only real difference is that you renege on your treaties and try to bully your treaty partners just like in the days of empire! It’s over. Now you have to play by the rules. Get used to it before you become a pariah.
The Brexit-inspired use of the word sovereignty has become fetishistic. Thereby it has been stripped of its useful meaning.
If I start with 100% control of my own affairs, then begin of my own free will to cooperate with someone else, that part of my decision-making power which I have now allocated to sharing with another is deemed to be a loss of sovereignty by individualists such as John Riordan.
If this were true, no form of sovereign social cooperation would be possible. “Sovereign” and “social” have been made into false opposites and bogus enemies. We require a mature self-sense plus the ability to share and cooperate with others.
It seems to be a characteristic of those espousing extreme individualism that they only know how to engage in discussion with others via put-down and abuse, viz:
You have not the first clue what you’re talking about.
If you think a nation can be in the EU and sovereign at the same time, you neither understand the EU or sovereignty.
Disagreement and opposing views are seen as attacks on one’s supreme sovereignty, to be batted away impatiently like annoying flies.
And by the way… the correct phrase is “neither… nor”, not “neither… or”. So, the comment should read, “you neither understand the EU nor sovereignty”.
But no doubt you will deem me to have interfered with your unalloyed sovereign control of what you say by my offering this correction?
A Nation that has no borders is no longer a Nation…
Your position, ironically, is very close to the tiny cabal of Irish right-wing extremists calling for an Irexit. Unfortunately, Ireland has a fledgling version of UKIP. They’re miniscule at the moment; but, as with the degradation of the Tory party in GB and the Republicans in the US at the hands of the so-called patriots, it would be complacent to assume that such extremists could not also make inroads into the traditionally centrist Irish polity.
Like the Brexiters, these extremist parties in Ireland rail against the EU, arguing furiously that Ireland no sooner achieved independence for the British than it proceeded to throw it all away by joining the EU.
Like you, these little extremist parties make the cardinal error of assuming they understand Irish nationalism.
The key to understanding Irish nationalism is to realise that it barely exists any more.
Culturally, Ireland is not like Britain in that regard. (I’ve lived in Ireland, NI and in England.)
I remember when we dropped the Irish currency for the Euro. The changeover happened overnight, and was enthusiastically bought into. An English tourist in the West of Ireland was flabbergasted to find that, the following day, a local shop refused to accept the old Irish currency, which then was only a few hours obsolete. He called an Irish radio station to express his “surprise” that the Irish had so little sentiment or regard for their old national currency. He seemed more sentimental about the Irish currency than the Irish were.
Of course, in Britain, there’d be rioting in the streets if the pound was to be abandoned.
And that divergent reaction underscores a fundamental (and largely un-recognised) cultural difference between the English and the Irish today.
The English, by and large, increasingly are Nationalists. The Irish, increasingly, are not.
Instead, de facto, the Irish are *European Unionists*. For instance, I want a United States of Europe. I want a European army. I want Europe to quit hiding behind the Americans. They can no longer be relied upon. The bear in the East is off its chain, and the Chinese are both authoritarian and expansionist.
Anti-EU sentiment is based on the superficially attractive notion of “reclaiming sovereignty”. However, that kind of nation state sovereignty no longer exists. Europe is made up of small countries and those who have not yet realised how small they are. Putin wants to see Europe weak and divided; hence his enthusiastic support for Brexit.
Ireland has two choices – economic reintegration with the UK, or continuing with the EU. Any purported third way – “freedom” from both the UK and the EU – is a delusion.
In 2021, most national parliaments are toy parliaments, amusing themselves with flags, trappings and grandiose slogans, the baubles of a long-vanished influence. In a world where economies are supra-national and where (apart from a couple of superpowers) independent military deterrence is an impossibility, they’re little more than glorified county councils. Through hundreds of treaties and thousands of common regulatory standards, national sovereignty has been shared and hollowed out to the point where it barely exists.
To answer your question then, we’re more than happy being what you describe as an EU “colony”. In fact, we’d like to go one further and integrate entirely. Bit of a shock for you proud Nationalist types, but we’re moving on from all that stuff. Ireland is more motivated by money than by flags. We’re a nation of business people. Provide we can make money and get on with our lives, we really don’t give a stuff about the nostalgic national agonies that so exercise right wing English people, as you continue your slow transition from being the world’s greatest power to merely being a regional European country.
Let’s see, shall we, when your tax haven status is removed, as the EU has every intention of doing, and the living standards of Irish citizens plummet, as they would.
There are many small and successful small countries in the world, Iceland among them. The tensions in the EU, unnecessarily forcing together 27 very different nations in one mould, are growing. Perhaps the Irish are unusually internationalist, the much more significant French most certainly are not, nor are the Hungarians or Poles.
As for ‘centrist’ and non nationalist, Ireland is one of the few countries in Europe which fought an absolutely bitter civil war in the 20th century, on the basis of a theological idea (Republicanism), so I’m not so sure.
Three points of correction:
1. Ireland moving from tax haven to merged tax agreement means moving from 12.5% to 15% ..big deal! It’s effect will be zero.
2. The EU is 10% forced integration but 90% mutually agreed integration. The 10% are akin to your beloved English nationist extremists. Us 90% are happy European bunnies.
3. The bitter war was a war of independence not a civil war. The fact that NI has Mosely or Quizling types (I’m being kind: they are actually foreign occupiers like Zionists) is confusing you: diehards like the Brits in rhe Costa del Sol who voted fir Brexit only to find they are immigrants after all!
But the real truth is we Irish see internationalism as far superior to petty, false-history based nationalism: the latter being the hallmark of the diehard extremist: the former the mark of the progressive.
Soon we will have a federation of Celtic states within the EU: Irl, NI, Scotland and later Wales, Brittany and Cornwall.. stop crying: I’m only kidding. Lighten up fgs!
What’s the difference between Union Jack flying nationalism and EU flag flying nationalism?
Only one of them is a backward looking white supremacist nation: the other is a bunch of forward looking diverse nations. I wont3say which is which: you’ll have to work that out by yourself!
That’;s unfair, I have never seen the EU this way, certainly it is less racially tolerant than Britain, but it’s going too far to paint it as white supremacist,
For a nation of business people you don’t seem to understand economics very well. Your entire economic model is based on being a tax haven and that is soon to be snatched away from you by your so called allies in the EU and the United States. With out that Ireland will stagnate as a back water, reliant on trade with the UK to keep it afloat.
You know nothing of Irish economics. The tax haven notion is a myth: we’re leaving it behind and moving all the way from 12.5% to the 15% agreed international rate. Shock horror!
Despite the fact we didn’t have slavery and exploitation to build our nation we are now far richer than GB (per head of pop.).. when we import NI we will have to bring it up to our standards of course. Right now it’s a basket case staying afloat thanks to GB subvention (that you can no longer afford btw)..
I’d agree with you on one point: ‘Ireland has two choices – economic reintegration with the UK, or continuing with the EU’. Geography, language, culture and familial connections suggest that the former course would be the most sensible.
Eh, no! We tried that for 750 years: didn’t do us Irish a lot of good: remnants in NI showed the marks until very recently: gerrymander, disenfranchisement, discrimination, abuses of all kinds. Our good friends in the EU seem a better option under maybe 100 headings. No. We’re not going down with you guys: you’re on your own. Enjoy the slide!
Ireland sold its soul and will pay a heavy price.
You make some interesting points, but a shame you had to make up the following line …
”Like you, these little extremist parties make the cardinal error of assuming they understand Irish nationalism.”
I have never assumed (or stated that) I understand Irish nationalism – maybe the incorrect assumptions are yours.
I’d recommend trying to avoid making them …
You are both right! You in relation to now almost disappeared, diehard, rabid IRA types and he is right on the new generation of rapidly growing internationalist Irish. The ratio now is maybe 20:80: soon to be 10:90 and then ..well, you get the picture! I believe it’s called ‘moving on’..
I live in southern,Ireland,was born here but moved to London when young ,early teen,s,but my English husband ant child wanted to come back here..I tried to warn him of the anti English sentiments of the Irish but he did not listen…he does now…we cant go back to England now because of grandkid,s,etc…but with hindsight,I would never have come “home”,it is my biggest regret in life and hope I can one day return to the best country in the world…the English people are super lovely…..God bless you all….
Anti-English sentiments of the Irish??????
Wow: very foreign notion to me! I married an English woman: wild horses wouldn’t bring her back to Blighty! Everyone here loves her (except for a few louts: you get those guys everywhere: England has more than its fair share!).. that story is a one off or at least very, very rare! Maybe her husband is not a very nice guy and that’s the problem??
Mmm, you have a point that the EU is greatly appreciated by all of its small countries -like Ireland. And why wouldn’t they? The economic benefits of being an on-shore tax haven have been huge. Equally, the EU has done wonders for liberal/social values in Ireland. Being part of the EU also helped pull Ireland out of the DeValera era while helping culturally and socially in what was frankly, a Catholic homogenous state. I would only proffer that Irelands view of the EU is consequently myopic -Irish EU Nationalism is no different than UK Nationalism -everyone needs an identity.
Ireland would never dream to confront Germany over its pushing through an EU trade deal with China before the new American president was installed. Nor would Ireland push back against the EU lining the pockets of Putin and his gangsters via Nordstream2 – while bypassing Poland and Ukraine…because these are not issues that Ireland concerns itself with. They are for the good of the EU where morals can easily be fudged. And then turn a blind eye.
Many EU countries don’t have the emotional attachment that Ireland and Germany have. As for the “United States of Europe” : this is just Empire building by another name -however well intentioned.
A quick look at history highlights the various empires that all failed for the same reason -they had no democratic mandate from it’s subject people to abolish the existing nation states. When you abolish a nation state (albeit slowly like the EU does) you always end up with a civil war.
You are largely correct: but Irish nationalism isn’t quite dead (thoughit may be among the young Turks).. but the Brit-haters are a dying breed for sure and not before time. I agree too that Ireland is pragmatic while England is nostalgic: so we go forward while thet go backwards. Like the majority or regimes the Tories will play whatever cards make them richer while your average Brit slides into oblivion..
Just out of interest, what do you do for a living? I’ve worked with plenty of Irish during the course of my life all around the world, and I haven’t met many that sound like the pro EU nationalists you describe.
However all the ones I met work on building sites, so I’m wondering if Ireland has the same divide between the working and middle classes as England when it comes to the EU?
What is extremist about Irexit?
Only that those who support it happen, by pure coincidence, to be extremists. The notion is not so much extreme as suicidal: we lived a semi-suicidal existence for 750 years under tyrannical English colonists. It wasn’t great.. going back in there would also be suicide.. so, the EU wins out under maybe 100 headings: the Irexiters are nutters more than extremists maybe? ..but definitely they are suicidal!
Well I gave you a thumbs up (reducing to 19) for a well written article peppered with intentional humour. However, I don’t `agree with your central premis – that nationalism is old hat. The day after the Brexit vote I applied for my Irish passport, having been born in the island of Ireland. I was inordinately proud, as my sons were, when the passports came through the post. It is simply preposterous to suggest that the majority of your fellow countrymen are interested only in money and that they would happily surrender their identity (and with it would slowly go their culture) in return for the EU coin. I now live in France where there is no question the populace see themselves as EU citizens first and French 2nd. Pace the hilarious vaudeville act of Michel Barnier with his supporters bellowing at Macron and LePen ‘Behind you …….’. Ive never understood how the name of a land mass on page 2 of my school atlas became the bloated artificial federated entity it is today. It started well as a means to control coal, iron and steel to prevent the building of Panzers (again) and easily morphed into a Customs Union. But now what defines membership and why? Why not Turkey, and the countries around the Med? And don’t get me started on an EU army. Would it include the Senegalese regiments in the French army? Would English be the control language? Perhaps Italian? Your point ‘Through hundreds of treaties and thousands of common regulatory standards, national sovereignty has been shared and hollowed out to the point where it barely exists’ only stands up if people no longer care about nationalism and sovereignty. My experience of life in England, Ireland and France does not support that view. Identity with a nation is a very simple human desire. It is why for centuries immigrants have come to the UK and not forgotten their roots. And they should not. There is nothing wrong with nationalism, it does not in any way prevent convivial and productive relations with neighbours. It is precisely why, in my view, the majority of the majority voted Brexit.
… a fundamental (and largely un-recognised) cultural difference between the English and the Irish today.
The English, by and large, increasingly are Nationalists. The Irish, increasingly, are not.
Yes, these two divergent directions are becoming increasingly clear.
You make a valuable comment, but I would disagree with you on one point:
One does not lose sovereignty by the act of sharing and cooperating, as long as that sharing is undertaken voluntarily, of one’s own free will.
The tax rate has changed from 12.5% to 15%: hardly earth shattering! Check your facts..
Are You sure you are replying to the right comment ?
Probably not.. I’m getti g on a bit!
But that extra 2.5% now means Ireland isn’t undercutting its neighbours, which is the main reason all these large companies based themselves there. Now Ireland has lost that advantage there’s little to entice any more foreign investment, so it is quite earth shattering
Em, you’re forgetting a few important facts:
1. We’re English speaking: and I mean proper English: none o’yer unintelligible cockney etc. Now the UK is out We’re the obvious choice!
2. We have a surfeit of 3rd level grads in all the vitally important fields.
3. We’re a good deal smarter than many of our competitors.
4. Ireland is more a attractive destination for USA investors due to cultural connections.
5. The Dublin financial centre is no minnow.
6. Airline connection is very well developed thanks to Ryanair…
..so yeah: 2.5% is not to be sniffed at but it’s not the only string to our bow.. we also have the Irish solution: if you’re Irish you know what that is. If your not you don’t and we’re not tellin’ ye!
Whatever happened to British pride.
That we signed the protocol at all is shameful but, given the treasonous behaviour of Parliament at the time it is understandable. Now is the time to assert control over this part of Britain which the Irish so covet.
Article 16 is a lawful route to the solution to a problem that need never arisen were it not for the duplicitous behaviour of our own Prime Minister (Mrs May).
Lord Frost should now tell the EU what Mrs May should have told them at the time, that Northern Ireland will remain sovereign territory. That the border must lie between the North and South of Ireland and that if the EU wishes to make that a hard border, then that is their prerogative.
Nothing else will do and nothing else will convince the EU that we mean business.
He should also repeat that message to President Biden and any and all US disrupters.
Of course he should: and if the Yanks don’t like it, invade.. oh wait: maybe not! Even the hillbillies beat the crap out of you the last time you tried.
But you should be able to manage the French.. after all you invaded them via Dunkirk didn’t you? Oh no, wait! You ran out of it in Dunkirk: geez guys: maybe not so fast..
When considering ‘treasonous behaviour’ don’t forget the treasonous behaviourists in the FCO and the Dept. for Exiting Brexit. Richard Rycoft excelled himself and laid are the continuos and ongoing weeping, remainer wound in his chat yesteday on BBCR4 World at One with Sarah Montague.
Richard took early retirement in March 2019.
The Augean stables still need that clean.
In short, you want an all-out trade war with the EU. OK, push long enough and you will get one. Do you believe you are going to win, or does your British pride require that you start it and lose it?
No-one wants a trade war. This is not an all or nothing game where the UK has to be in the EU Single Market or die. The UK is entitled to take a democratic decision and not be in the political EU federalist project. Trade is fine and SHOULD be separate from that. Canada does not take orders from Washington. Japan does not have its laws made in Singapore. They all trade without threats of freezing or starving out each other over a few fishing licences.
The UK is entitled to take a democratic decision to leave the EU and the single market. The EU on its side is entitled to block trade access and suspend cooperation if they are not happy with the conditions the UK offers, or if they want to force the UK to cooperate on peace in Ireland. As for the fishing licences, if they are such a tiny problem it should not be hard for the UK to grant them, surely.
Sure they do BUT on an equal and respectful footing: that’s where your man Frost is going wrong: he thinks the British Bulldog is the way to go. Those days of Empire are long gone guys: get used to it. You want the penny and the bun: it ain’t gonna happen. Play fair and let’s work together.
Yeah but they do so via trade agreements! which they adhere to, see? There’s your difference right there! They don’t renege: they make agreements and stick to them! Not sure if the English can manage that?
Article 16 was included in the agreement BECAUSE it was impossible to predict how it might work out, it was not a predictable outcome nor could have been considered a static one. It was the best way to get it over the line within the EU-mandated timescales because the EU laid out an all or nothing approach instead of managing an orderly step by step withdrawal sector by sector which would have been the sensible approach.. I always expected the NI protocol to be looked at again once it had been trialled for a few months. It is clearly not working – one of the conditions is that is does NOT interfere with or reduce the integrity of the UK single market – which has just as much right to integrity as the EU single market.
You are mistaken on one crucial issue: NI is NOT part of Britain: it is part of the UK hence it is the United Kingdom of Great Britain & Northern Ireland. Britain like Ireland is (merely) an Island with 3 states in it: like our island has 2 states. Mainland Europe has 35+ states 26 of which are in the EU.
The establishment of the NI statelet was a mere expedient in 1922 and all sides expected it would be temporary.. and indeed it will be.
Ideally, when Scotland becomes independent all three states will combine to form the Celtic Federation of Scotland and Ireland! The Welsh will follow but not soon. Eventually Cornwall, the Isle of Man and Brittany may follow! We may even combine with our Nordic brothers!!
And where is the money going to come from for this Celtic dream of yours? Scotland, Wales and NI all run at a loss currently, and the Republic has just lost its main economic draw card as a tax haven. I’ll assume you mean all these countries will be in the EU, so will presumably have the Euro as their currency? I’d wager most would end up like Greece rather than Germany I’m afraid
I think Liam was being light-hearted. The clue is in the exclamation marks.
I genuinely can’t tell if he’s a being serious or if he’s a parody
So far we seem to be doing okay: with the 2nd highest GDP per head on the planet. All down to a 2.5% difference in corporation tax you think? Dream on..
You guys are going backwards: enjoy the slide!
NI is not part of Britain silly: its in tbe UK, sure (for now): but Britain is an island: don’t you guys study geography?
That’ll never happen: for a few reasons:
1. The Bbritish don’t care about NI: apart from a few diehards. BJ threw the DUP under a bus. Good for him. Nobody cared least of all the pragmatic British, ie the 99% with more important things to attend to. In fact the great majority would. E happy to see the back of NI!
2. The cost would be far too great as the EU esp. the French; and also the Americans would punish Britain enormously!
3. Britain’s name would be mud. Tenegers, liars, not to be trusted, not worth doing a deal with coz they cheat etc etc..
So to repeat: it’ll never happen..
Traditional English gunboat diplomacy.
Borders were no problem at all to the EU in 2015 when Merkel extended her welcome to millions from … anywhere in the general direction of Syria.
Now, in 2021, one small border between two trading countries is suddenly the hardest problem in the world. It’s totally cynical and political , and all but the most hardened EUrocracy-lover knows it.
You are comparing apples with pears. Incoming mmigrants are not the same thing as national government administering territory within its borders.
How to deal with the EU
EU: It’s May’s Backstop or No Deal!
[off stage: Remoaner cheering]
Boris: OK then, No Deal
EU (Little Leo V): Oh! Er.. OK we will get rid of the Backstop then
[sound of crying at the BBC]
Some months later…
EU (Barnier): It’s either an ECJ controlled partnership agreement or a basic FTA
Boris: The FTA please
EU (Barnier, Shocked): But an FTA without ECJ control in not possible!
Boris: OK No Deal
EU (VdL): OK here’s a comprehensive FTA with no ECJ involvement
[weeping at the Financial Times]
Some months later…
Frost: The NI Protocol isn’t working
EU: The NI Protocol can’t be changed. Implement it!
Frost: No thanks. We are not going to implement it. What’s more, if you don’t rethink the NI Protocol, we’re out.
EU: OK we will change it. Here is Jacob Rees Mogg’s and Iain Duncan Smith’s Max Fac approach that we laughed at in 2019. How’s that?
Frost: We’ll think about it. I’ll ask the boss when he’s back from his painting holiday.
[Andrew Adonis shoots himself]
If only he would (shoot himself)
Excellent.
Excellent article and I have bought the book.
As a child growing up in Northern Ireland I used to despair about the failure of unionism to match the propaganda efforts of Sinn Fein.
I now realise that it has never mattered how slick we might have been or how lucidly we might have laid out our position and beliefs.
The elite have decided in their wisdom that “Ireland” should be one country and nothing will change their minds.
I am at least relieved that when the inevitable happens, the Irish government and people may still be able to make the new Ireland a cold house for Northern unionists, but surely in today’s global and visible world they will not be able to ethnically cleanse the North as they did the South in the 1920s and 30s.
Ethnic cleansing is not ethnic cleansing if the right population is cleansed
You’ve rather spoilt your case there by implying Israel is an extremist state.
I don’t think it was ethnic cleansing, but the very heavy handed embrace of the most reactionary Catholicism by the Irish State and in particular de Valera, the stifling of artistic and other freedoms etc, certainly made the Republic an unwelcome home for many Protestants (ironically given the previous prominence of many of them in Irish culture).
But, big question for a possible reunification, I wonder if the Republic would introduce a National Health Service to accommodate the Northerners, who, rightly or wrongly, strongly support it.
On your first point, despite what a lot of Irish nationalists would have you believe, Paisley wasn’t the leader of Unionism, or indeed representative of Unionism at all, other than a minority strand of less than 10% of the population, until his decision to embrace the structures of the Good Friday Agreement and form one half of the Chuckle Brothers with the late Martin McGuinness. Paisley was a peripheral figure. His tendency to rant and bluster was held in the same level of esteem (ie little) by most unionists as much as nationalists. He only gained popularity with moderation. Of course, I appreciate that doesn’t fit your narrative, but it doesn’t change the truth of it. Moreover, SF were hardly banned, they were voiced by actors and it was ludicrous, but they were still voiced. And the British state supporting unionism? Ha!
On your second point on the destruction of protestantism in the Republic of Ireland, which if I may be permitted to paraphrase, “ah sure there was nothing going on here, nothing to see”….
100,000 protestants left the free state (over a third) in the space of a few years. There were some aspects of violence (Dunmanway Killings), some boycotts, but chiefly the state made clear (via, for example, requiring Irish language for civil service posts) that protestants were not welcome.
You may think that it was fine for a third of the population of a minority to leave (a further 100k decline happened between 1930 and 1990), and that’s fine. My own opinion is that in any other context, this would be seen as pretty ignoble to say the least. If a third of British Asians suddenly left the UK in the space of 10 years, I would have thought plenty of people would have plenty to say about that.
On your final point, it seems like in your rush to disagree you didn’t read what I wrote. An increase in happy clappy churchgoing in the Republic of Ireland has absolutely no relevance – what has relevance is that your desire to minimise and ignore Northern protestant concern is exactly what I am referring to when I talk about a reunified Ireland being a cold house. Or do you think that a new Ireland would welcome protestant orange culture? Perhaps I’m wrong. I suspect I’m not. No doubt we’ll find out in due course.
There was no ethnic cleansing in the ROI: but those who had pillaged and murdered thought it best to leave: Ireland’s first president was an Anglican (Church of Ireland as I am): we CoI people in the ROI suffer no discrimination whatsoever: indeed the opposite: we have favoured status and have had since the foundation of the state. We are over represented in all professions and in politics!
Contrast that with the despicable treatment of the minority population in NI: Gerrymandering, crookery and bigotry at every hand’s turn aided and abetted by a heavily biased RUC and a degenate bunch of thugs the B-specials, UVF etc. It was always “majority rules and minority gets very little”: battered to the ground on a human rights march! They didn’t even have full voting rights fgs!
Happily those days are well over and only a few diehards yearn for a return to those wicked days. I note the article steered well clear on Police, B-special and Unionist atrocities! But that is in the past and now thanks to superior breeding capabilities the nationalists are the majority.. no more talk of majority rule from the DUP I notice!
So unification of Ireland is assured: it’s only a matter of working out the details. Unionists per se have nothing to fear from a united Ireland unless they happen to be bigots and power grabbing in which case they will be welcome nowhere: least of all in their beloved England I suspect!
It is the height of hypocrisy for any Unionist to whinge about Ethnic Cleansing when their entire raison d’être is based on Ethnic Cleansing.
Ethnic Cleansing of the Catholic population of the 6 counties was the official policy of the state of Northern Ireland .
When it comes to ethnic cleansing the unionists have no equal .
In fact they wouldn’t exist if it was not for their enthusiastic embrace of the practice of ethnic cleansing
No mention of the huge subsidy paid to Northern Ireland by the rest of the UK. Do the Irish really want to step in and support the economy of the North?
No: we expect the remainder of the UK ie Great Britain to continue to support it: you set it up: you screwed it up: you pick up the bill, like in Afghanistan.. over time, as we bring NI up to ROI standards and improve its viability the subvention will reduce: you won’t have to cough up forever but you’ve gotta pay for your mistakes! That’s fair!
I can’t tell if you’re a real person or a parody
Parody..
The Irish will earn the respect of the English when, and only when, they stop voting for Sinn Fein/IRA.
That will never happen. Imagine if Hitler had overrun England as he nearly did, would you guys kowtow or would form guerrilla bands? Would you be okay with your freedom fighters being called terrorists as they tried to reclaim England for the English? Or is that completely different???
The funny thing about your comment is that Sinn Fein were active N_zi collaborators. Sean Russell, the IRAs Chief of Staff, died onboard a u-boat and still they put his statue in Fairview Park!
..or you vould address the point I put to you: or is it a bit too tricky for you?
The same Hitler for whose book of condolence was signed by De Valera?
The same.. address the question ease: if you dare?
We are need the respect of the English like a mouse needs the respect of the cat. We’d just rather keep a respectful distance and work on a little self-respect: I think you may be a little behind on that one so come back when you catch up. Sadly that may never happen? Maybe pulling down a few more slaver statues might help?
A bit of Brexit realism would have improved the article. There were only ever five ways of squaring Northern Ireland with Brexit: Binding commitment to EU product standards in Britain, border in the Irish sea, border on land, border betwen Ireland and France, or free access for UK goods to the EU with the UK free to disregard EU rules and regulations at will. Which one is the author proposing?
R border around all the island of Ireland would be the fairest. All parties signed up to the GFA. Single Market ideology should never has trumped the peace deal, as Trimble points out it has
You are forgetting that the GFA worked perfectly well – until the UK torpedoed it by Brexit. So now Ireland should leave the single market to make things easier for the UK to get what it wants? How fair is that?
The GFA only needed to exist because of Irish terrorists. Since when does democracy have to give in to threats of violence?
You have a simple solution then. Get rid of all the Irish terrorists, rip up the GFA, and count on your democratic legitimacy to keep things peaceful and happy. Or accept that you live in the real world.
No. The GFA exists because the protagonists opted for peace. Compromise is what was called for and that’s what we got. NI is having an economic bonanza with free access to Britain AND the EU: it’s the stuff of dreams! Only diehard Unionists object and for reasons no longer valid.
..excuse me: it’s freedom fighters trying to win their country back from incaders! Just like if Hitler had invaded England your plucky chums would have become freedom fighters: or would you have called them terrorists as well?
Brexit was a democratic decision. The status of Ireland is for its citizens to decide. You really must be extraordinarily naive though if you believe that the whole border issue and supposed importance of peace in Ireland was a neutral matter and not largely weaponised by the EU to force the UK into submission. That isn’t to say the UK negotiated well, clearly the Protocol was agreed to get Brexit over the line for the majority of the country, but Northern Ireland was no doubt shafted in the process.
But whatever the history, just holding on to a failing policy come what may is a complete disaster. It is really quite likely to eventually bring about the very resumption of armed conflict the agreement supposedly was designed to prevent. Loyalist extremists can see how Sinn Fein / IRA have effectively been rewarded, however unavoidable this might have been in the GFA process, and will have taken note.
There are several ways to fix this. Britain could simply accept to stick to EU rules, either by law or through some kind of long-term equivalence deal. Problem solved – but you do not want to. Or Britain could pour a lot of resources into getting the current agreement to work and keeping the Unionists on side anyway – but you do not want to. Or you could assiduously cooperate on the deal and convince the EU that you could be trusted not to exploit any concessions you get for future advantage – but you do not want to (and you would have a lot of ground to make up anyway). Your proposal is that you get everything your way, and the EU makes all the concessions. For some strange reason they are not interested.
As for ‘weaponising’ NI, I am sure the EU would be perfectly happy with any deal that left the UK fully independent – as long as it kept NI at peace and British good had no access to the EU. The trouble is that there is no such deal – and you would not accept it anyway if there was.
NI wasn’t shafted! Only the (now minority) diehard Unionists were shafted. The majority population (including pragmatic Unionists) are delighted with the protocol: sure they have the best of both worlds. The early glitches will be worked through and it’ll all be grand! ..except for dodo Orangemen!
NI was “shafted” by the Protocol? Have you listened to the NI business groups? They couldn’t give a flying f… about the ECJ and are delighted with the proposed changes. But unlike Unionist politicians they live in a world where trade, jobs and supporting your family are what matter.
NI wasn’t shafted: only the DUP was shafted! The other 60+% were very happy with the protocol. Remember NI voted against Brexit!
Suggesting that Brexit torpedoed the GFA is utterly laughable and shows you have absolutely no grasp of the situation, all rational thought seemingly being crowded out by the black and white conviction of “EU good, UK bad”. Please try and be a little more nuanced in your arguments, it’s more fun that way.
Brexit has challenged the status quo on which the GFA was built, but its preservation depends on how the future solution is negotiated. The implementation of a ridiculous level of controls between UK and NI has been a huge factor in destabilising the situation. Now, the EU is looking at giving “concessions” on those controls – which is basically an admission that they weren’t really necessary in the first place.
Well, before Brexit the situation in NI was stable and settled, if not exactly problem-free. After Brexit it had major problems – whether you call that ‘challenged the status quo’ or ‘torpedoed’ makes no difference. Of course there are various solutions, some that require concessions by the UK, some that require concessions by the EU, but since it was the UK who triggered the current problem, many would expect the UK to pickup the cost.
If what you say is true and I agree it is: that the GB-NI controls are over zealously applied then the solution is to relax those controls, right?
Oops.. looks like the EU agree with you and me and so are doing just that. Problem solved: right?
Your 2nd point is valid: your girst point is not and there is little valid connection betwwe the two.
Was staying in the EU part of the deal for the GFA then? Oh dear must have missed that in the small print… No only joking, we both know it wasn’t. See, I think the rest of the EU have to see the island of Ireland as something unique and accommodate the change to its single market ideology on the grounds that this is the surest way to maintain the GFA. Unless of course they don’t want peace? Or the Irish being the mature, internationalist,
non border obsessed types some on here are claiming might see the notion of a land border as not that bad a thing after all. Then there’s no issue. Which leaves the ball with people like you: what price peace for an outward looking, progressive bunch like the southern Irish, who have moved on the from the nationalist small mindedness?
Problem is the border will have two sides: its the upper side is the problem: the lower side isn’t really that bothered.. but we’d kinda rather peace than war so we’re kinda against it for that reason: may sound strange to you guys but hey, it’s not really in your backyard is it? ..unless the IRA re-form and bring it to you like they did before: so really, the GFA is kinda important! Not sure you you fully get that?
A border between Ireland and France because of a UK-NI-IRL deal? Are you having a laugh?
No just recognising the uniqueness of the issue on the island of Ireland and putting the GFA before the single market ideology. Are you indeed having a laugh?
There was also the option of reaching some kind of equivalence arrangement for goods passing between the EU and the UK. Since equivalence can be withdrawn by the EU, if the UK changed its standards in the future so that they did not meet EU standards, checks proportionate to the risk to the single market could have been established in the Irish sea. However, the condition the EU set to grant equivalence was that the UK state how it would change its standards in the future – something it does not ask of any other third country. And also something that probably couldn’t have been known at the time. Does anyone have perfect knowledge about how their laws are going to change in the future? The UK rightly refused this *unrealistic* demand. The refusal by the EU of equivalence to a country that presently has exactly the same food, phytosanitary product standards was a political move and made the situation with NI needlessly fraught. All of those check established for goods that represented an almost academic risk to the single market – was it really worth causing turbulence for that? Not really.
That comes under “free access for UK goods to the EU with the UK free to disregard EU rules and regulations at will“. Sure, a low-key deal could have been done, but it would have to be based on the EU trusting that the UK would 1) enforce it, 2) not change its regulations in a way the EU found unacceptable. The deal with Norway is supposedly full of holes, but Norway is so small that they cannot risk a big fight with the EU – and anyway Norway respects the deals it signs. In the UK case it is obvious that any room for maneuvre would be used to undercut and disrupt the EU market to the UK’s advantage. Why would the EU accept that?
The EU doesn’t even respect it’s own rules so enough of the high moral tone, the EU is an undemocratic mercantilist cabal.
It has nothing to do with morals. The EU is a compromise machine, the nations get together and agree on things, rules or not. Inside or out, the basis of any deal is that the participants stand by the result. If you cannot trust the other side to stand by its promises you have no reason to give them anything, that’s all.
I’ll repeat, the EU doesn’t stand by its own rules when they are inconvenient and certainly doesn’t respect referendums when they don’t go their way..
We were the ones asked to have a 2nd referendum: the proposal was explained in more detail and a few concessions were granted: first time it was barely rejected: 2nd time it barely passed.. all sounds aok to me!
If you ask me to do something and I refuse on grounds of inadequate detail (uncertainty) and you then allay my concerns and even grant a few concessions: I’m in! Is that really so odd to you. Is compromise so alien that you only know intransigence and obstinacy?
I would have expected that if the planned outcomes were not provided by an agreement, amicable renegotiation around sticking points would be encouraged. Sadly, none of them are adult enough not to engage in point scoring at every opportunity.
This is not exactly point scoring. To the EU it is crucial that trade into the EU follows EU rules, and that the ECJ settles disputes, to prevent strong countries from simply imposing their will. To the UK it is (apparently) unacceptable that the EU or the ECJ have any influence on the rules on any British territory. Yet the UK wants free flow of goods from the UK into NI, and the Good Friday Agreement makes it impossible to set up a reliable trade border on land. The problem was clear from the beginning, and the UK accepted to keep NI inside the single market and have the necessary border in the Irish Sea. Now the UK is trying to make the agreement fail, and using the failure to force the EU to replace the treaty they just signed with another one that suits the UK better.
And before you start on equivalence arrangements: An equivalence arrangement means that the EU accepts UK rules for traded goods, not only now, but into the indefinite future where the UK can (and surely will) change their rules to get maximum profit from their access to EU markets. Since the EU obviously cannot trust the UK to play nice, they insist on reliable guarantees in return for access.
I read to the second line or thereabouts re “to prevent strong countries imposing their will…” yikes you really have Brussels blinkers on,
I think the blinkers may be on your own face not that it matters much as you seem to be blind to any notion of fair play, obeying rules, adhering to agreements, real negotiation and compromise. Problem is that makes you a bit tricky to do business with..
Wow how naive. That is NOT how it works at all. There is a myth of ‘equal voices’ within the EU, but the reality is that the bigger countries (Germany and France) pretty much get to decide and the others fall in line.
I am from a small EU country. We know perfectly well that we do not have equal power with Germany. But being in the club means that we can be part of the committee work, gang up with other countries, and exchange our accept of deals for (possibly minor) concessions. Without the EU the bigger countries would be even more powerful and the smaller countries would have even less leverage.
Gross overstatement.. tiny modicum of truth in there somewhere but that just makes it a bigger lie! How did smaller nations like Ireland do so well with all those big bullies around? When we had England for a big bully we got rightly screwed!
Not actually true, David Cameron vetoed the bailout of the Euro, the EU did it anyway. The completely unconstitutional imposition of uber austerity on Greece to protect French and German banks is another.
The rules are observed and imposed whenever they happen to suit politically, otherwise often not. You can if you like argue realpolitik by a big player, you can’t argue rule of law.
On that one issue you indeed have a point: conceded! But that is one of a great many issues where the opposite was true..
No, it wouldn’t have done. As I stated very clearly, if the UK changed its rules in the future so that they no longer came up to EU standards, the EU could simply withdraw equivalence, or fail to renew it. It should be a matter of rationality and fact (are rules equivalent?), not some big emotional drama. It is also wrong to see the solution to Northern Ireland through the lens of “what are we giving away to the UK?” The sole focus should be “how do we solve the problem with Northern Ireland in a balanced way so we can all move on?”
And, speaking of the disregard for EU rules…it is quite alarming to read how the EU, which disregards its own rules as frequently as I change my underwear, feels it is authorised to lecture others on complying with rules.
I’ve been reading about l’affaire Sharpston (the controversies surrounding the exit of the former Advocate General Eleanor Sharpston), including the excellent reporting by Joshua Rozenberg. This case was highly instructive on the EU’s own approach to the rule of law. Do as I say, not as I do seems a rather apt expression.
https://rozenberg.substack.com/p/eu-court-undermines-its-independence?fbclid=IwAR2fnepKOqY4aveL-dbww9tC2c2gNkEVRleTcCCzjThD2P9pUya_cQpeC7I
Again, this is not about the rule of law, this is about keeping your word if you want other people to do deals with you. Even drug dealers pay attention to that one.
As for equivalence and balanced deals, the UK and EU have very different ideas about what would be reasonable, and about who should pay the price for keeping the peace and keeping trade flowing. We are living in the real world here. There is no point in getting uptight about your opponents being unwilling to sacrifice what they see as their interests in order to make your life easier.
“Keeping your word”… yep that’s politics.
By all means break your word but pay the price when you do: it involves losing respect and drastically reduces the number of countries that are prepared to trust you.
So I guess you think the British approach to adhering to the rules is superior? Ask any of it many former colonies and you’ll cause a great deal of laughter! I’m Irish: I know..
Sure the EU bends the rules from time to time but really, it’s not a subject you British should get into if you don’t want to be very seriously embarrassed! I would drop it if I were you..
Yes: sadly you’re just not to be trusted. That’s the price of reneging on deals!
Exactly. I’ve been saying this for ages. EU intransigence is the issue. They do not treat any other 3rd country this way, they still see us like a naughty child that has to be punished. The propaganda war is still being fought because I honestly think the EU and Remainers believe if they grind us down enough we will beg to be let back in, take the Euro, Schengen, the whole works and give them loads of money for their pet projects like the EU Army. Imagine if it were any other country being threatened with *having its food and energy supplies cut off* over a few fishing licences……
It does also seem rather strange that France is talking about ripping up the Touquet Agreement in retaliation for the fishing licences etc. The Touquet Agreement is – if I’m not mistaken – an international agreement between two countries. So France would be ripping up an international agreement because it is in a huff about fishing licences and the UK wanting to rip up an international agreement. Quite how this ludicrously hypocritical attitude is not being savagely taken apart in the press is beyond me.
1) The Le Touquet agreement is an exchange of favours. It can be unrolled by both sides pulling back the favours. The EU withdrawal treaty (apart from being extremely new) regulated the international situation after Britains withdrawal. It cannot be unrolled – Britain cannot move back to EU membership, can it?
2) For some reason people get much more upset about the person who strikes the first blow than about the person who hits back.
Alternatively you could abide by the agreement and grant the licences like you promised.. but maybe that’s not the British way.. not how you built the empire what what?
Most civilized countries do know how laws are changed. What are you on about?
Funnily enough the EU are now proposing Jacob Rees Mogg et al’s Maximum Facilitation which they previously dismissed as a fantasy. They really are a paper tiger!
So if they concede they’re a paper tiger: but if yhey don’t they’re intransigent: right?
Or perhaps what the EU is only now proposing, which is to adopt a pragmatic and realistic approach to checks, recognising the vast majority of the goods going to Northern Ireland are destined there! Rather than a seemingly deliberate attempt to make the post Brexit relationship as difficult as possible.
Only a blind ideogue or bureaucratic zealot could argue that the present policy is working, the flow of food and goods are being drastically impeded. But clearly, peace in Ireland is much less important than hermetically sealing the single market from the dangerous products of the dastardly British!
East West trade across the Irish Sea greatly outweighs the much vaunted intra-Ireland trade.
The vast majority of goods going into NI is destined there – for now. Once it is clear that NI is a useful way to export into the EU while avoiding customs that is likely to change.
For the rest it is a bit rich that the UK blows up a functioning peace settlement in order ot pursue its national interest, and then blames the EU for not sacrificing its own interests in order to satisfy Britain and keep the peace.
But you forget the intra-EU trade to/from Ireland! We’ve moved from 4 Irish-EU ports to 13 and growing now that the landbridge (I think you call it Britain) is closed..
Option no. 6. The good ol’ British Bulldog approach! BJ and Frost are giving it a good go? It worked fine during Empire days (nothing a little genocide can’tsort out) so ‘should work okay now as well maybe??
Superb writing and journalism.
No it isn’t: it’s shallow, biased and inaccurate.
“A large exception: Ireland’s most remarkable novelist, Colm Toibin, who in a Guardian column asked of the anti-British, pro-United Ireland/Sinn Fein crowd: “do they want to import sectarian hatred and the politics of perpetual grievance from the north into the south”?”
To which one might respond, “If they do, why not shove it their way with both hands before they change their minds?” (Sorry, unionists…)
Give them an axe to grind over forced unification and they will grind it – Eire can look forward to that.
It was never clear to me that a majority in the Republic wanted the north and all its problems. Maybe things have changed.
They’d take it on principle wouldn’t they? Heart over head?
Eh, only with massive reparation from you guys: you made the problem you pay for it! You f..cked up Afghanistan you can pay for that as well: yeah, and Iraq: and if you had any decency you’d be supporting the poor Palestinians you shafted with the Balfour agreement! Instead you support the murderous Zionists you handed their country over to: and continue to supply them with arms to prolong the genocide..
No they haven’t: you created the problem: you keep it: you pay for it..
“ the Irish claim of possessing one of highest GDPs in Europe, substantially higher than that of the UK, is based on it being one of the greatest of world tax havens. ”
Ireland is not a tax haven, it is a country with low corporation tax, until now. Same with the Netherlands.
Also far from claiming the GDP to be realistic, the statistics offices in Ireland use a different measure called GNI. Which is significantly lower.
I lived in Britain during the referendum, Northern Ireland was barely mentioned. The Good Friday Agreement not at all. The only land border with Europe, never. That’s what should worry unionists. The recent anger with the Irish isn’t really about the union but the EU.
I submit the real problem is a cultural change. Unionists in N. Ireland are stringently Protestant. England has no real Protestant or anti-Catholic cultural sensibility anymore. Catholics, atheists and Muslims are all more common than militant Protestants. Given this fact is it any surprise the English don’t really care? We forget how recently this was a white hot source of dispute across the Anglosphere from Canada and the US to Australia. It was the glue between Scotland and England. And, in our post-modern times it lacks the exotic feel and regional charm of a Gibraltar or the Falklands, places where the population feels far more English and obligingly normal and peaceable and thus easier to symphathise with their plight.
This seems right to me. I’m an Ulster Protestant by birth and upbringing and left to go to college in Edinburgh then on to England and the US. It was obvious to me after living in Scotland and England that the fundamental issue is that Unionists believe in a version of Britishness that no longer exists in most respects (Rangers fans excepted obviously) in the rest of the UK. The only thing that has changed is that a lot of them are now cottoning on the fact. It was stark staringly obvious that a border was going to be put in the Irish Sea and I roll my eyes at whining about betrayal by Boris. Bloody ejits. Having said that, I doubt the South really wants us, they want to make gestures in that direction because that is their sentimental tradition, but it would not be too much fun for them to welcome the members from Ballymena and Ards into the Dail.
Spot on! Nice to read a bit of sense at last.
Very insightful indeed!
Low corporation tax = corporate tax haven.
Ireland has the 2nd highest GDP per capita in the world! However, because of our low tax rate multinationals fix the books so all EU profits are nade in Ireland hence artificially inflated GDP. They then repatriate those profits back to the US tax paid so GDI is depleted enormously but GDP figures don’t reflect this. It’s creative accounting!
Correct! On all points..
If the written agreement of the UK government that Northern Ireland should be deemed to be part of the Single Market and within the jurisdiction of the ECJ was a “wound to Britain’s sovereignty”, then it was a self-inflicted wound, taken on the chin in order to secure a result that was considered to be desirable, and also in order to win a UK general election.
The Agreement also states that it should respect the integrity of the UK single market as we are a sovereign nation. We have a single market too you know. The idea that the EU Single Market (a collection of nation states) overrides the UK Single Market (one nation state) is absurd. No-one else would accept it. The British people made a democratic choice, threats of violence at the Irish border and ideological puritanism by the EU should NOT be able to override that.
I hope you’re okay with the violence when it comes knocking at your door? Peace seems to matter little to you. I find that strange..
Very good article, thank you.
Quite sympathetic to Lloyd’s take, but the reality is that the hated protocol was negotiated by the very UK government that now wants to repudiate it. Lloyd conveniently elides this issue.
It was agreed under duress, not negotiated. If someone puts a gun to your head it ain’t a negotiation.
The 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty was negotiated under duress , the Irish delegation were threatened that “reign of terror ” would be inflicted by British forces on the Irish population if they did not accept the terms of the Treaty .
Disingenuous.. it was negotiated over a protracted period.. if you want to welch on the deal do so but don’t pretend it’s not really a deal. Man up..
It was not negotiated by this UK government. It was accepted by the May government and her negotiator, Ollie Robbins.
It was a cynical attempt to lock the UK into the Single Market and weaponised the Irish border. An action that was supported by the UK establishment by their consent that the GFA meant that the Irish Border had to remain open but the closure oof the Irish Sea border was acceptable.
George Orwell is still right. The Irish Intelligensia are aligned with the views of their Government at present. However, I think the Irish establishment is being threatened by their own equivalent of the ‘Red Wall’ – Sinn Fein.
So what you’re saying is if the UK enters into an international treaty it is free to welch on it whenever there’s a change of government! That view makes you unique on the planet. Please try again… must do better!
Excellent article and very informative of the various parties positions too.
Personally I’d offer Northern Irish citizens a choice. Move to the mainland or join the Irish. Having a sea border as well as all this rancour over a land border (which doesn’t need to exist except for EU intransigence and the threat of resurgent violence) is just not worth the hassle or the cost. And if geography makes Irish unification inevitable what does that say about the Scots?
Hilarious! You clearly have no understanding of Northern Ireland. The idea that Ulster “Unionism” has anything to do with the “United” Kingdom is complete nonsense. The statelet itself was the result of Protestant armed rebellion against the UK’s Westminster Parliament (long before the IRA came into existence). That rebellion was armed by the Kaiser’s Germany and extended to the suborning of senior officers of the British Army. The poor old Irish, on the other hand, clung to the idea that they could achieve their political aims through the Westminster Parliament, until it became clear, from the success of the Protestant rebellion, that armed force was the only language Westminster understood.
I was despairing of the comments on this article until I saw your post.
Unionists have a unique concept of what forms an electoral majority. They had an in built majority in the creation of the 6 county, gerrymandered, sectarian statelet that became known as Northern Ireland.
When they lose that majority in the 6 counties then according to Unionist logic you just create another state of 5 counties where they have a majority or 4 counties and so on until you end up with East Antrim , North Down and east Belfast
Oh dear. Another day, another irredeemably biased, poorly-informed and self-pitying article from a Brexiter.
Where to start with this thoroughly muddled and incoherent article?
Let’s run through its various flaws:
First, it has a clickbait strapline which is not adequately explored in the article.
Second, it’s hopelessly biased – in an era where ongoing street disorder is largely the preserve of the author’s intellectual fellow-travellers, NI’s violent Brexiter extremists, the author, remarkably, sees fit to ignore that completely and to bang on instead about the IRA, a bunch of retired and redundant old guys whose organisation ceased to exist sometime in the last century.
Third, it cherry-picks support from Irish figures who are viewed as political clowns in their own country.
Fourth, and this is by far the worst of its various failings, it fails to understand how the vast majority of ordinary Unionists and ordinary so-called “Nationalists” think. Accordingly, his article is a response to something which doesn’t even exist. The author is arguing with the voices in his head.
From the top then:
1 THE EMOTIVE CLICKBAIT STRAPLINE:
First, his article suffers from a clickbait strapline: “Unionism is being demonised to benefit the EU”; and “Ireland’s Brexit blackmail”. “Demonised”; “blackmail” – both words straight out of a right-wing tabloid propaganda playbook.
The article then fails to develop this theme. Who, precisely, is “demonising” Unionism? And how on earth would any such demonising, even if it did exist, “benefit” the EU?
We’re not informed, as, having made such a self-pitying and ridiculous assertion, the author then fails to define what being “demonised” means to him, and how, for instance, being “demonised” differs from being merely “disagreed with”.
For decades, an extremist, bible-thumping, hard-right, socially-reactionary (I remember children’s swings in council playgrounds chained and padlocked on Sundays to ensure that the Catholics properly would observe the Lord’s day lol) Unionism ruled the roost in the North, until the British government, fed up with their rotten borough mismanagement of NI, pulled the rug from under them in 1972 when they shut down the Unionist-dominated local govt in NI and imposed direct rule from London. I suppose the author might consider that that action by the British govt was part of this great campaign of “demonisation” too lol.
Since then, Unionism’s psyche resembles that of a Daily Fail reader on acid – paranoia, self-pity and outrage all on continual display.
That mindset is one that struggles to see the difference between being disagreed with and being demonised. If your mentality that, according to the bible, you’re right about everything, and that compromise is sinful, then any form of disagreement is viewed inevitably through a prism of outrage and maudlin self-pity, and you consider that you’re being “demonised”.
It’s all rather pitiable, as these people really are struggling to live in the modern world. The author notes, correctly, how few friends they have in the wider world (apart from Mossad, and in former times, apartheid-era S. Africa, both of whom supplied Unionist paramilitaries with weapons), and apart from a few widely-disregarded hard-right British Nationalist cranks and fan-boys such as Gudgin Pin and Baseless Bassett.
Ireland’s Brexit “blackmail”? Blackmail is when you pressure someone to do something they do not wish to do, by threatening to disclose an incriminating secret if they do not comply.
This is an extraordinary assertion. Who, precisely, is “blackmailing” whom? The author doesn’t say. Are the Irish “blackmailing” somebody? Is the EU? What secrets are they threatening to disclose? What is the precise basis of all this “blackmailing”? The author gives no details of any “blackmail” whatsoever; yet us content to let a ridiculous slur word hang out there, entirely unsubstantiated.
What, for instance, has Unionism done that it did not wish to do? Unionists, freely and voluntarily, voted for Brexit, and the borders that inevitably follow when you vote to leave a trading union. They were not “blackmailed” into voting for Brexit; they wanted to vote for more and harder borders, that was the whole point of the miserable Brexit caper. This current balls-up is all on them and on the Brexiters. At least, folks, be adult enough to own the consequences of your own actions! Mrs. May had a Brexit on offer which would have obviated the need for an economic sea border. Unionist MPs voted to reject this. Nobody “blackmailed” them into doing so; they wanted to dump May and her pragmatic deal which would have ensured no economic sea border. Instead, they supported Johnson, who then negotiated the current deal, the one that Unionists also disagree with (incidentally, can anybody remember the last time the Unionists willingly agreed to anything?!). However, the Unionists are the full authors of their own misfortune here. Had they not been so quick to assist in putting Mrs. May in the political dustbin, they would not now have any sea border issues. Or Is the author saying that the British govt was blackmailed into signing the current deal?
Blackmail my foot. Unionism is not being blackmailed, and never was. Instead, it is making a series of disastrous tactical errors, all by itself.
Obviously, Unionism is being disagreed with, at home and abroad. The reason for this is that their “position” is falling apart under the weight of its own internal contradictions. Their position makes no logical or strategic sense, not even from their own pro-Union perspective, and I develop the theme of Unionism’s strategic own-goals below.
2 Mr. LLOYD’S EVIDENT BIAS, AND HIS BIZARRE “ELDERLY WHITE BLOKE” FIXATION ON THE IRA
There is a certain type of right-wing elderly Englishman who will never tire of re-living WW2 and endlessly “re-defeating Jerry” in his head. Similarly, there is also a cohort of white blokes of a certain vintage who almost seem to regret that the IRA no longer exists. Deprived of the IRA’s existence, they have one less bogeyman to write lurid headlines about; and so, they start to fantasise about the IRA’s continuing existence. Drew Harris, current head of the Irish police, is a Unionist and former head of the now-banned RUC, and even he merely said that the IRA’s structures “remained in a much-reduced form”, that it is “not actively recruiting” and that “its leadership is committed to achieving a united Ireland through peaceful means”. May I quote you the 2008 conclusion from the Independent Monitoring Commission, the body established by the British and Irish govts to monitor paramilitary activity after the Good Friday deal in 1998: “the IRA “by deliberate choice is no longer operational or functional”. May I quote you the 2015 assessment by the head of the Irish police, wherein they formally stated that they: “had no information or intelligence that the Provisional IRA still maintains its military structure”. Is it time you guys really moved on from your bizarre fixation about the IRA?
It really is unbalanced in the extreme that, in an era of street disorder by the author’s Brexiter-Unionist intellectual fellow-travellers, the author can dredge up references to a moribund IRA while completely ignoring the ongoing campaign of street violence and intimidation by Unionism’s Brexiter’s thugs(!).
There is of course a long and ignoble history of Unionism resorting to violence and intimidation when the UK democracy they profess to be “loyal” to functions in ways that they disagree with, for instance:
– In 1912, the UK govt published home rule bill for Ireland. In response, Ulster’s Unionists signed the Ulster Covenant, established a terrorist organisation, the UVF, to resist the UK parliament, and smuggled in 25,000 rifles and between 3 and 5 million rounds of ammunition from Germany to Larne. In the subsequent settlement after the Anglo-Irish war, the British govt excluded the northern counties and partitioned the country.
– In 1974, the UK govt established a power-sharing executive, under the Sunningdale Agreement. In response, Ulster’s Unionists – the Ulster Unionist Party, the Vanguard Unionist Progressive Party and the Democratic Unionist Party – formed the pro-strike United Ulster Unionist Council; and called a general strike to oppose power sharing. The strike was managed by the Ulster Workers’ Council and Ulster Army Council, which were formed shortly after the Agreement’s signing. Both of these groups included loyalist paramilitaries such as the UDA and the UVF. These groups helped to enforce the strike by blocking roads and intimidating workers. Ballylumford power station provided electricity to Belfast and most territory East of the Bann, and so those parts were without power during the strike. I remember my Dad and Uncles, chainsaws in the boot to cut through felled trees. During the strike, loyalist paramilitaries killed 39 civilians, of whom 33 died in the Dublin and Monaghan bombings. The UK government abandoned power sharing.
– In 1985, the UK government signed the Anglo-Irish Agreement with Ireland. In response, Ulster’s Unionists established 2 new paramilitary forces, the Third Force and Ulster Resistance. Ulster Resistance was launched at a 3000-strong invitation-only meeting at the Ulster Hall. The rally was chaired by the Democratic Unionist Party Press Officer Sammy Wilson and addressed by party colleagues Ian Paisley, Peter Robinson and Ivan Foster. Also on the platform was Alan Wright, the chairman of the Ulster Clubs. Ulster Resistance’s aims were to “take direct action as and when required” to end the Anglo-Irish Agreement. The group imported, via Israel and apartheid-era South Africa, over 200 automatic assault rifles, 94 automatic pistols, 12+ RPG-7s and circa 150 warheads, 400 – 500 RGD-5 fragmentation grenades and over 30,000 rounds of ammunition. The daughter of one of the gun runners, Noel Little, is a current DUP politician.
– In 2020-21, the UK government signed an anti-trade deal, known as “Brexit”, to increase red tape with the EU on the ground of sovereignty. Logically, once you leave the EU, there has to be a border *somewhere* with the EU, given that the South of Ireland is part of the EU (doh). So as not to: (i) breach the 1998 Good Friday Agreement (‘GFA’); (ii) cripple North-South trade and cross-border communities; and (iii) annoy the pro-GFA Americans and thereby jeopardise a trade deal with them; it was felt that a limited sea border could be put in place between GB and NI. In response, Ulster’s Unionists consulted extensively with Loyalist paramilitaries on their Brexit strategy; and subsequently used rabble-rousing talk (“betrayal”, “anger”) to oppose the Brexit deal they originally voted for. Now, in the new customs facilities in Larne, Loyalists are threatening staff; and Loyalists once again are on the streets, doing what they do best, using violence when they feel let down by British democracy.
Former Unionist MP, Lord David Trimble publicly warned us that, in opposing Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal, there is “real potential for those who have engaged in past violence to take action again”; and Loyalists are out setting fire to buses and threatening to march on Nationalist areas – as if the Remain voting Nationalists somehow are to blame for Unionism’s perceived Brexit difficulties.
At best, such public “warnings” are irresponsible. At worst, they’re cynical rabble-rousing. So-called respectable conservative Unionist politicians are fomenting the disorder that they pretend to be “appalled” by. In reality, it’s a logical outworking of their cynical rhetoric over the last months, and it’s entirely disingenuous for them to affect “surprise” at the disorder, to blame it on Loyalist “frustration”.
Does anyone really think that a bunch of layabouts in athleisure would even be aware of the nuances of non-tariff barriers and customs procedures, still less be exercised by them, were it not for a prior, daily drip-feed of rhetoric about “losing their Britishness”?
3 Mr. LLOYD’S CHERRY-PICKED CITING OF IRISH PUNDITS WHO HAVE NO POLITICAL CREDIBILITY IN IRELAND
For instance, the author seeks to support his inchoate positions by citing the likes of the writer Colm Tóibín and the former Irish diplomat, Ray Bassett.
Unfortunately for the author, politically, both blokes have zero credibility in Ireland. Tóibín, a posh middle-class bloke who lives mainly in LA, is a fine writer of fiction, but utterly out of his depth when attempting to stray, in his trademark pompous and muddled manner, into modern Irish politics. I read that same article by Tóibín, the one cited with such alacrity by the author. Predictably, it was a very muddled article. In it, Tóibín purports to compare Sinn Féin (a pro-EU, pro-immigration, centre-left party) to UKIP (an anti-EU, anti-immigration, right wing party). That apocalyptic anti-Republican mindset (Tóibín’s statement in his article that SF in 2021 is a “spectre” and a “tide”) is widespread among older members of the Southern Irish upper middle-class, who psychologically are often unable to rid themselves of decades of anti-Republican prejudice. This was fostered by previous Irish governments who, courtesy of Section 31 of the 1960 Broadcasting Authority Act, enthusiastically operated the most draconian anti-Republican censorship in Western Europe. In that article, Tóibín approvingly cited a Unionist who explained his opposition to the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement on the basis that “The Dublin government suddenly had a say in the affairs of Northern Ireland, but no one in the North could vote to remove the Dublin government” and that “this opposition to arbitrary authority was at the very heart of Protestant identity.” Of course, the considerable irony, which Colm misses entirely, is that the London government has a major say in the affairs of the North (such as forcing Brexit on a region that voted against it) – and nobody in NI can vote to remove them either.
As for Allsorts Bassett, give me a break : ) Complete clown. The guy lives in London and is British establishment in everything but name. He’s a senior member of very right wing, anti-EU British think tank; he lives full time in London and, on his website, he can’t even bring himself to describe himself as Irish, choosing instead to describe himself as “Dublin born”.
Bassett, also a self-proclaimed expert on folic acid, lives full-time in London and is a Senior Fellow at the Policy Exchange, a right-wing British think tank. Its website states that it is “completely independent”. Fact check: it is funded secretly by big business and has strong links to the Tory party.
The Policy Exchange’s website states that “the authority and credibility of our research is our greatest asset”. In a rambling June 2017 Policy Exchange Report lauding Brexit and quoting Donald
Trump with approval, Bassett stated that Ireland’s “two largest export markets are the UK and the USA”. Fact check: they’re not. The (not un-typical) 2015 Irish export percentages show that around 35% of Irish exports were to the EU (excluding the UK), 24% were to the US and slightly less than 14% were to the UK.
The Policy Exchange’s website boasts that it makes “workable policy recommendations”. In 2008, The Policy Exchange suggested that Northern English cities such as Liverpool and Sunderland had failed and that northerners should migrate to the south. No further comment, though David Cameron described the report as “complete rubbish” and “insane”.
Frankly, one wonders exactly what kind of acid you’d need to be expert in to take the likes of “Oiwish” Bassett seriously.
4 Mr. LLOYD DOES NOT UNDERSTAND MODERN NORTHERN IRISH PEOPLE
Fourth, and this is an unforgivable error by the author, Mr. Lloyd simply does not understand how the vast majority of ordinary Unionists and ordinary so-called “Nationalists” think.
If you want to understand how the DUP increasingly represent nobody but the DUP, read on:
In N Ireland, the local Unionist Brexiters of the DUP party, out of an emotional desire to strengthen a (British) Union, voted against a (European) Union. Sounds almost comically dumb; is dumb. Think about it. The North of Ireland still is a place of divergent political allegiances, Irish and British. On a day-to-day basis, without anyone saying too much about it, prior to Brexit, *these had largely ceased to matter*, since common British and Irish membership of the EU afforded an over-arching soft identity and polity that allowed trade and theoretically-divergent political aspirations and identities comfortably to mingle and to co-exist. Continuing EU membership meant that the Irish community in the North of Ireland, who are in theory opposed to to a union with Britain, were nonetheless de facto increasingly comfortable with continuing in a union with Britain. Free movement of goods and people meant that the border had in practical terms ceased to matter. While many pro Irish unity folk would always of course say (if questioned about it) that they would like a united Ireland at some indeterminate point in the future, privately they would admit that there were now no obvious downsides to being in the UK either. In that way, for most of the Irish community North of the Irish border, Irish unity had been relegated to a manana project.
Increasingly, whatever about their political theory, in practice, Sinn Féin (the pro Irish unity party in the North of Ireland) were de facto committed to making N Ireland work. This is a critical point, barely recognised outside of the North, and, obviously, complete news to Mr. Lloyd.
The DUP simply weren’t shrewd or perceptive enough to realise this massive step-change in pro Irish unity real world thinking. Instead, in an error of catastrophic proportions for the North’s British Unionists, the reliably-choleric DUP knee-jerked emotionally and blindly to their opponent’s sacred cow mantras, and to their opponents’ actions from 40 years earlier, while failing utterly to realise the surprisingly pro-Union (with GB) de facto nature of their opponent’s current working realities. From a pro-union with GB perspective, it was an unforgivable error. One of the first rules in any competitive situation, whether it’s in business or in politics, is that you must know your opponent. What do they say they want? What do they really want? What are they happy to live with? What is their bottom line? What matters to them, and why? Obviously, that level of knowledge obliges you to think with a cold head, to think rationally and strategically, to treat your opponents with a serious amount of respect, and be prepared to adopt a satisfactory compromise position. Very obviously, the absolutist DUP has shown itself entirely devoid of any of those capabilities. Unfortunately for the DUP and for Brexiters in general, hampered as they are by half a century of cultural apocalypticism and a simplistic, proto-Trumpian, binary solution mindset, their knowledge of N Ireland’s pro-Irish unity community’s real day-to-day priorities and motivations is unforgivably poor, and seemingly derives largely from their own cartoonish and outdated stereotypes, and from their own fears and fevered imaginings. Their ability to formulate nuanced and far-sighted strategy in their own political interest seems largely absent.
As a recent perceptive article by the London School of Economics notes:
“Brexit has made a united Ireland – though far from inevitable, and, according to some polls, only at the margins – an increasingly immediate and concrete proposition … Brexit has left the party in a position of political strength unprecedented in its history, and its primary policy goal of Irish unity closer than at any time since Ireland was partitioned 100 years ago.“
However, any eejit could have foreseen that much (although, as noted above, some DUP eejits certainly didn’t) – the really interesting bit is what that LSE article then notes:
“However, far from having viewed Brexit as a wedge issue, to be leveraged in the pursuit of constitutional transformation, we have found that it has instead been overwhelmingly viewed within Sinn Féin as a threat to be managed. Especially in its potential to disrupt the openness of the Irish border, Brexit has represented grave political, economic, social and existential risks, which have been most acutely felt by nationalist voters in sections of Sinn Féin’s core constituency, including in the border counties and multiply deprived communities in Belfast and Derry. Throughout the Brexit process between 2016 and 2019, the party was principally concerned with contesting Brexit policy rather than with using Brexit as an opportunity for polity contestation. As one former Sinn Féin MLA neatly summarised: ‘We are in this dilemma that actually the harder Brexit is, I suspect, the more support there will be for a United Ireland. But despite that, we are trying to mitigate or ameliorate the worst aspects of Brexit.‘”
That’s the un-recognised real-politik of Sinn Féin in 2021. Despite being in theory working for a united Ireland, they’re nonetheless trying to make the North work. They know well that their voters will no longer stand for anything – be it bombs or unhinged political policies such as Brexit – which interfere with people’s day to day economic prospects.
The contrast with Unionism, which is in theory supposed to be “committed” to Northern Ireland, could hardly be any more stark. In 2019, the DUP leader, Sir Geoffrey Donaldson, said that he “could live with 40,000 jobs lost as a result of Brexit“. What sort of headcase politician says that? What sort of voters even allow a politician to say that without electoral consequences?
Gone are the days when British Unionists (as opposed to European Unionists, like me) could be said to be “more loyal to the half crown than to the crown“. These days, the DUP are a party of detached ideologues, psychologically reliant on handouts from Britain, and whose extremist fixation on a “pure” hard Brexit has put them on a collision course with local business leaders of all political persuasions. In fact, I’ve long suspected that the DUP has a vested interest in keeping NI economically weak – they view economic weakness as a defence against possible unity with the South of Ireland, as it allows them to say to the South: “unity will cost you too much“. That is, the DUP is wedded to poverty and dependency as a way to ensure that they nonetheless can continue to live under the right colour of flag. Whereas, not to mince my words here, provided it’s not rubbed in their face, many pro Irish unity folk will happily live under any damned flag provided we can get on with making a good living. As the late John Hume remarked, “you can’t eat a flag“.
Historically, from the time of Punch cartoons onwards, Britain viewed the Irish in the way that old-style sexist males viewed women, i.e., overly-emotional and unpredictable. Ironically, these days, the perma-petulant British Brexiters (count the number of times “outrage” and “fury” appears in British popular press articles about the EU – a quick Google search of “outrage daily express” pulled up no less than 17,400,000 results lol), including the DUP, are the Romantic emotional extremists, lost in a fog of “pure British sovereignty at all costs” (literally at any cost), and increasingly adrift from mundane-but-vital economic realities; and it’s the Irish who are the hard-headed realists, more concerned with the economy than with first world problems such as notional identities and f***ing flags.
When Brexit happened, the DUP voted for the hardest possible Brexit. They did that out of a desire to strengthen the union with Britain; and I don’t doubt their sincerity of purpose for a moment. However, stategically, it was a spectacular own goal. Brexit makes the Union with Britain more difficult. It can’t do anything else. A vote for Brexit is a vote for more and harder borders – that’s essentially what Brexit is – more borders, more red-tape.
***It’s worth posing the central question – in what ways did the DUP think that making the Union with Britain more difficult would strengthen the Union with Britain?***
In reality, a vote to remain in the EU would have strengthened the Union with Britain. Even a vote for the half-way house Protocol, which keeps NI fully in the UK and still gives porous access to the EU, would strengthen the Union with Britain.
In short, anything which makes cross-border economic and social life easier for NI’s pro Irish unity population strengthens the Union with Britain.
However, the DUP’s rationale, if one could call it that, seems to have been: “Let’s piss off the pro united Ireland population as much as possible; let’s make NI difficult and unworkable for them; that’s bound to convince them of the merits of the Union with GB!” The DUP failed completely to realise that many in the pro Irish unity camp were de facto in the pro Union with Britain camp already. That is, the DUP based its strategy on what it thought its opponents were, as opposed to what they actually were. As an analysis failure, as a policy failure, that takes some beating; and is explicable entirely by the DUP’s comfortable bigotry which ensures that it views its political opponents through the the narrow prism of its own ingrained prejudices, and acts accordingly, generally taking the wrong option every time.
This ability to paint themselves into corners (and then to blame the paint-brush) is irrational to an extent that almost defies explanation. The DUP’s Brexit antics derive from a tedious mix of self-pity, white cultural nostalgia, impotent rage and chronic insecurity. The DUP’s Brexit “policy” is a perfect example of how to cut off your nose to spite your face.
Sadly, internationally, and within England, it’s generally not recognised just how unrepresentative the DUP are of the majority of people in the North of Ireland. Not only do the DUP not represent the Irish community in the North of Ireland, they don’t even represent all of the British community in NI either, and this is especially true of the British community who live away from Belfast, closer to the EU border.
Recently, leading Belfast Brexiter, Jamie Bryson, brought a bus-load of Brexiter bandsmen and assorted yahoos to Enniskillen (a rural town near the EU-Irish border) for a “massive show of strength against the Protocol“. Fermanagh is a county with lots of Unionist people, so Jamie thought he was on to a winner. However, hardly anybody showed up, and egg-on-face Bryson was left sermonising to his bussed-in rent-a-mob while sensible local Unionists ignored them in their droves. So much for Boris Johnson’s government’s b/s about “community tensions“.
In that context, it is instructive to read an editorial in Co. Fermanagh’s main pro-Union (with GB) newspaper, The Impartial Reporter. It’s much more reflective of a pragmatic border (GB) Unionist view of Brexit / the Protocol:
“Everything changed with the peace process and the Good Friday Agreement and movement back and forth became easier; indeed better than ever and people returned to a more normal life. People just want to get on with their lives and we’ve become used to it.
The impact that the previous Border had for decades was enormous. It would be madness to go back to the Border of the past with all its difficulties.
Yet, one gets the impression that Jamie Bryson and Jim Allister would quite welcome such a scenario here, whatever the inconvenience for people in this area. Bryson, according to Twitter found the journey to Enniskillen “quite the trek” and was thankful for a SatNav. He’s distant from the problems here.
This smacks of a sense of entitlement from a certain constituency of loyalism, which hasn’t quite grasped the changes which have taken place in Northern Ireland, both in terms of the demographic and the attitudes, particularly among younger people that the old symbols of past division aren’t as relevant to modern life for them as they were.”
Remember, the above is a take on Brexit and the EU *from a Northern Irish British Unionist*. It’s a million miles away from the cynically-hyped and over-stated “unrest” and “disruption” hyperbole of the DUP and Mr. Johnson’s Brexit organ grinder’s monkey, Lord Frost. That pragmatic viewpoint is widely shared between the British and Irish communities in NI, and especially by people West of the Bann, people who would have to live with the border fallout from the British government’s unprincipled chicanery. It’s galling to listen to the British government claiming to “represent” NI. They do not. With half an an eye on throwing some red meat to their reliably EU-hating base (as a way to distract from the as yet un-materialised “benefits of Brexit” – whatever they might amount to), the British government is merely using the North, and hyped-up concerns about the role of the ECJ (a complete non-issue in NI), respectively as a pawn and a distraction in a cynical Brexiter spat with the EU. Johnson, or the traditional East of the Bann British Unionists, or the careerist top brass of the DUP? None of them give a flying fig about the everyday lives and prosperity of people affected by the border.
Mr. Lloyd’s article is a puff article, devoid of serious content or serious intent. He does not know what he’s talking about, and until he can see past the prism of his own last-century stereotypes, he’d be better advised to come live in NI, talk to local people outside Belfast, and make some effort to understand the reality behind the old stereotypes.
I had been waiting to read a flurry of replies to your thoughtful, mature, extended piece, so I in turn could join in the discussion. Unfortunately, the silence is stunning. The sole uptick is mine.
I am fed up with the general quality of comments from Unherd’s readership: anything that is more than one short paragraph tends to be ignored; extremist insults abound; no one seems to understand the problems with ad hominem argument; once one comment has been made, dozens more pile in with opinionated, unthinking, fact-free support, as if to kill off any opposing views by sheer weight of aggressive numbers.
This is to say thankyou for taking the time and trouble to enlighten us—I was really helped by your gift for marshalling history’s long saga and millions of facts into an informative, quality overview.
How I wish we had a decent comments section which encouraged more extended, thoughtful discussion, backed by moderation which discouraged insults and slurs and a comprehensible tick system which showed if anyone had given a minority assessment rather than lumping everything into one overall “pass/fail”.
Where has my comment gone; did Unherd disagree with it?
“England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality.”
Actually, not true. In the US, intellectuals most certainly hate their own nationality, or at least their institutions, with a vengeance. Their attitude towards the vast majority of their countrymen is that voters in the US are too stupid and ignorant to make decisions for themselves. Only Marxist “experts” can reliably make decisions, and these decisions are, of course, superior to any decisions that the people could make for themselves. “Vox populi, vox dei,” is something you will absolutely never hear in the US. US intellectuals consider government by the consent of the governed obsolete, because they think the people are no longer capable of giving informed consent.
So because we (I’m Irish) disagree with the British on Brexit and particularly the NI protocol we are “anti-British “? And wading through the quotes in the piece I just about spotted the words “The deal, agreed in December 2020” – and yes the Protocol was part of “the deal”.
Perhaps the English are well justified in being ashamed of their own nationalism, a thin veil for an exclusive club within white supremacy?
As with most Unherd pieces it is very one sided – no mention of Unionist / British Army atrocities: no mention of internment without trial: nor of denying a vote to the Irish in NI: gerrymandering too is omitted. Sure there were atrocities on the IRA side but they weren’t alone.
Imagine for a minute Germany occupied Britain in 1940 and stayed: how long before you English would stop fighting for your freedom? Would you tolerate all the discrimination in housing, voting rights etc. and be happy to be second class citizens in your own land while Mosley and his Nazi friends held sway: for how long would you struggle to assert your civil rights peacefully as nationalists did in NI only to be brutally beaten by Unionist⁷q thugs aided and abetted by the NI police and the Stazi-like B-Specials? If a British soldier put his rifle butt through your 12 year old sister’s face, scarring her for life as happened to McGuinness would you be ok with that? I think you’d fight back: and yes, you’d fight dirty too! You’d be called, not freedom fighters but terrorists.. I know this is hard but try it!
The reason everyone dislikes the Unionists, including most Brittons is because they are so damn dislikable! The reason Irish nationalists have so many friends is they have right on the side. Now they have history and demographics on their side as well. We Irish are unionists as well! We seek union for the island of Ireland!
And lest you think we’re bitter: we’re not: we’re past that: there were wtongs on both sides. We willbe united and we will welcome decent Unionists as well.
NI is unique in that it is in the UK and also in the EU for trading purposes. It has the penny and the bun! NI business people on both sides are very happy with the arrangement. Only the diehard DUP are moaning: they are throwbacks as is evident from their silly Orange marches and bullyboy tactics. But they are bred out now: only the angry cries of the defeated remain.
Would the problem go away if products shipped from the UK to NI with a clear label “Only for sale in NI” did not require further documentation?
Sure: if we in the EU can trust you guys.. oh, sorry: seems you’re not to be trusted. Nice try though.
Progressives don’t like democracy. What’s new?
The article can be boiled down to a Unionist/Brexit good and Irish Nationalism/EU bad; this is at best partisan journalism and does little to explain the complexities of the situation to, what I presume, is a largely UK audience. The article might also have been helped by getting its facts right and giving context to some of its observations: Simon Coveney is a member of Fine Gael and is in a coalition government, not a Fianna Fail one; Varadkar’s comments are devoid of the fact that he is attempting to stave off the Sinn Fein threat at the next election.
Things it fails to mention include the inconvenient fact that Northern Ireland voted against Brexit and that, to some extent, the agreement gave it the best of both worlds in terms of trade (EU and UK).
The comment that ‘[unionists] have been so grievously disregarded by their own government’ speaks volumes and while I don’t doubt that some unionists have that opinion, it reeks of victim posturing. BTW, I fully agree that unionists should not have ‘unity thrust upon them’ but the waves of history will decide how the future pans out.
That is in some ways fair, although of course the opposite position is much more widely and commonly trumpeted! Grievance politics is by far more common (but in their case successful), amongst Irish Republicans and Scottish Nationalists, who often embrace tendentious and partial histories with relish! It is rather ironic that one set of romantic nationalists want to reunite (politically) a ‘severed’ island, and another to sever one!
Since various British governments have overtly or covertly tried to ‘get shot of’ the Northern Ireland ‘problem’ by giving a foreign country a key role, not to mention the most recent betrayal by Boris Johnson (surprise!), perhaps the Unionists have a case.
A ‘solution’ that is rarely canvassed is a Northern Ireland devolved government with fair voting (as there now is) with attempts at community building. The Republic of Ireland has now existed to all intents and purposes for a hundred years and perhaps there is no more ‘need’ for a political union of any kind between the two states in Ireland than there now is between India and Pakistan.
Rambling and pointles article. John conflates anti-Brexit with anti-British. John knows that the Union is dying. Poor old guy. Must be hard for him, and all the other old right-wing dudes.
Living in a climatically dying world must be hard for all the young liberal dudes.
Ergo you consider yourself Left wing. Hmmmm, I think you’re going to find the EU a tad disappointing
Since the UK voted for Brexit, most anti-Brexit positions do indeed have a very strong tinge of anti-Britishness, or perhaps anti-Englishness. Absurd calumnies (we are post-imperial nostalgists just waiting to get back to dominating people etc), we hate foreigners etc) are directed at this country and a lot of its people, which in any other context would be called racist. The UK is very far from perfect, but on any sociological measure is in fact one of the least racist countries in Europe.