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| Version 1 | Version 2 |
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| The Observer view of the Irish border farce and Brexit | The Observer view of the Irish border farce and Brexit |
| (10 days later) | |
| The Irish government has done us all a service by highlighting a fatal flaw at the heart of Theresa May’s exit strategy | The Irish government has done us all a service by highlighting a fatal flaw at the heart of Theresa May’s exit strategy |
| Sun 26 Nov 2017 00.06 GMT | Sun 26 Nov 2017 00.06 GMT |
| Last modified on Sat 2 Dec 2017 02.27 GMT | Last modified on Sat 2 Dec 2017 02.27 GMT |
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| A scathing critique of the British government’s conduct of the stalemated Brexit negotiations, compiled from reports by Irish diplomats in EU countries, slipped into the public domain last week. The timing of the leak was not coincidental. It precedes a critical heads-of-government summit in Brussels next month, when Theresa May is gambling the negotiating impasse will finally be broken. This summit is shaping up to be a watershed moment for Britain’s misconceived and ill-managed bid for a deal with the EU before the door slams shut a short 16 months from now. | A scathing critique of the British government’s conduct of the stalemated Brexit negotiations, compiled from reports by Irish diplomats in EU countries, slipped into the public domain last week. The timing of the leak was not coincidental. It precedes a critical heads-of-government summit in Brussels next month, when Theresa May is gambling the negotiating impasse will finally be broken. This summit is shaping up to be a watershed moment for Britain’s misconceived and ill-managed bid for a deal with the EU before the door slams shut a short 16 months from now. |
| The impact of the Irish leak was twofold. The contempt privately expressed by some EU government officials for the flailing efforts of David Davis, the Brexit secretary, and Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, provided further evidence that they are making an epic mess of things. That’s important in terms of the shifting mood in Britain, where public awareness of the unaffordable economic and social cost of Brexit, especially a hard Brexit, is growing by the day. The leak also helped remind Westminster of Dublin’s acute worries about the likely negative consequences for Ireland, whose economy is uniquely dependent on exports to Britain and British transit routes. | The impact of the Irish leak was twofold. The contempt privately expressed by some EU government officials for the flailing efforts of David Davis, the Brexit secretary, and Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, provided further evidence that they are making an epic mess of things. That’s important in terms of the shifting mood in Britain, where public awareness of the unaffordable economic and social cost of Brexit, especially a hard Brexit, is growing by the day. The leak also helped remind Westminster of Dublin’s acute worries about the likely negative consequences for Ireland, whose economy is uniquely dependent on exports to Britain and British transit routes. |
| The Observer is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper, founded in 1791. It is published by Guardian News & Media and is editorially independent. | |
| Such reminders are necessary. The extraordinary degree to which ministers have ignored, minimised or fudged the complex issues surrounding future border arrangements between Northern Ireland and the Republic is nothing less than scandalous. Nearly 18 months after Britain voted to leave the EU, we still do not have a clear idea how the reimposition of a “hard border”, which nearly everybody agrees would be a disaster, can be avoided. The government’s sub-par working paper in August merely revealed the extent of its cluelessness and inattention. It was rightly dismissed in Brussels as “magical thinking”. | Such reminders are necessary. The extraordinary degree to which ministers have ignored, minimised or fudged the complex issues surrounding future border arrangements between Northern Ireland and the Republic is nothing less than scandalous. Nearly 18 months after Britain voted to leave the EU, we still do not have a clear idea how the reimposition of a “hard border”, which nearly everybody agrees would be a disaster, can be avoided. The government’s sub-par working paper in August merely revealed the extent of its cluelessness and inattention. It was rightly dismissed in Brussels as “magical thinking”. |
| May and many in her party seem unable to grasp that the border issue is about a lot more than trade. At stake is the ability of people and communities to connect across an island whose bitter history of subjugation, division and injustice is never far from the surface. At stake is the integrity of the 1998 Good Friday agreement, the proud, shared achievement of Labour and Conservative prime ministers. At stake is future North-South co-operation and what the Irish term the “all-island economy”. At stake, potentially, is the amicable relationship between the UK and Ireland that has been painstakingly patched together amid the gravestones of centuries of tears and blood. | May and many in her party seem unable to grasp that the border issue is about a lot more than trade. At stake is the ability of people and communities to connect across an island whose bitter history of subjugation, division and injustice is never far from the surface. At stake is the integrity of the 1998 Good Friday agreement, the proud, shared achievement of Labour and Conservative prime ministers. At stake is future North-South co-operation and what the Irish term the “all-island economy”. At stake, potentially, is the amicable relationship between the UK and Ireland that has been painstakingly patched together amid the gravestones of centuries of tears and blood. |
| When the EU taskforce dealing with Brexit and the border “mapped”, or listed, specific areas of collaborative political, economic, security, societal and agricultural activity that could be adversely affected, the total was a staggering 142. They range from co-ordination on the ongoing paramilitary threat to cross-border ambulance services and bus routes. A resurrected post-Brexit border does not have to be physically imposed to still be deeply psychologically and socially damaging. The prospect of Ireland’s old dividing lines being revived and retrenched thanks to another English failure of imagination and leadership is morally repugnant. As a nation, we have been here before. Have we still not learned the lessons of our shameful Irish past? | When the EU taskforce dealing with Brexit and the border “mapped”, or listed, specific areas of collaborative political, economic, security, societal and agricultural activity that could be adversely affected, the total was a staggering 142. They range from co-ordination on the ongoing paramilitary threat to cross-border ambulance services and bus routes. A resurrected post-Brexit border does not have to be physically imposed to still be deeply psychologically and socially damaging. The prospect of Ireland’s old dividing lines being revived and retrenched thanks to another English failure of imagination and leadership is morally repugnant. As a nation, we have been here before. Have we still not learned the lessons of our shameful Irish past? |
| Judging by the complacency oozing out of Downing Street, maybe not. As in so many other areas of British life, when it comes to Brexit, May betrays the legacy and achievements of her more competent predecessors. The government continues blithely to maintain that all this will somehow be sorted out, claiming that Britain and Ireland are on “the same page”. This is delusional and misleading. By declaring at the outset that, come what may, Britain would leave the single market and the customs union, May has effectively ruled out a whole range of possible compromises. She has boxed Britain into a wholly avoidable corner. And the Irish are not fooled. | Judging by the complacency oozing out of Downing Street, maybe not. As in so many other areas of British life, when it comes to Brexit, May betrays the legacy and achievements of her more competent predecessors. The government continues blithely to maintain that all this will somehow be sorted out, claiming that Britain and Ireland are on “the same page”. This is delusional and misleading. By declaring at the outset that, come what may, Britain would leave the single market and the customs union, May has effectively ruled out a whole range of possible compromises. She has boxed Britain into a wholly avoidable corner. And the Irish are not fooled. |
| Suggestions by one senior minister that US-Canada border arrangements could be replicated are shot down by another minister, who points out that a physically defended, guarded and patrolled demarcation of that type would be unacceptable to Dublin and the EU. Hong Kong, with its one country, two-systems arrangement with China, is seen as another possible paradigm. Even the Isle of Man is mentioned. Yet for all this blather, the bottom line is unchanging. To avoid the deal-breaking “regulatory divergence” that is anathema to Michel Barnier, the chief EU negotiator, and all the unwanted knock-on effects, Northern Ireland must surely remain in the customs union and single market or, which is much the same thing, agree to abide by its rules. | Suggestions by one senior minister that US-Canada border arrangements could be replicated are shot down by another minister, who points out that a physically defended, guarded and patrolled demarcation of that type would be unacceptable to Dublin and the EU. Hong Kong, with its one country, two-systems arrangement with China, is seen as another possible paradigm. Even the Isle of Man is mentioned. Yet for all this blather, the bottom line is unchanging. To avoid the deal-breaking “regulatory divergence” that is anathema to Michel Barnier, the chief EU negotiator, and all the unwanted knock-on effects, Northern Ireland must surely remain in the customs union and single market or, which is much the same thing, agree to abide by its rules. |
| As the Brussels showdown looms, the dire truth is that May and her chums still do not have an answer. They do not have a plan and appear not to have a clue. Step forward the Irish government, which, unlike the Brexiters, has been focused on the border all along. Last week’s leak was another sally in Dublin’s intensifying campaign to pressure London to stop waffling and get serious. When he met May in Gothenburg this month, Leo Varadkar, the Irish prime minister, was blunt. Dublin had noted Britain’s flat rejection of its earlier proposal that the EU border be relocated at Irish Sea ports. Varadkar’s government rejected as malicious anonymous suggestions in London that this idea was part of a devious Sinn Fein reunification plot. | As the Brussels showdown looms, the dire truth is that May and her chums still do not have an answer. They do not have a plan and appear not to have a clue. Step forward the Irish government, which, unlike the Brexiters, has been focused on the border all along. Last week’s leak was another sally in Dublin’s intensifying campaign to pressure London to stop waffling and get serious. When he met May in Gothenburg this month, Leo Varadkar, the Irish prime minister, was blunt. Dublin had noted Britain’s flat rejection of its earlier proposal that the EU border be relocated at Irish Sea ports. Varadkar’s government rejected as malicious anonymous suggestions in London that this idea was part of a devious Sinn Fein reunification plot. |
| Varadkar played his ace. He warned May that unless he received a formal, written guarantee that a hard border would not be reintroduced, Ireland would veto Britain’s summit request that phase one of the negotiations be concluded and the talks move on to a UK-EU trade deal. Brexit-backing politicians had not “thought all this through”, Varadkar said, but now he was determined to concentrate minds. While EU member states might agree “sufficient progress” has been made on the other phase one issues – Britain’s divorce bill and citizens’ rights – Ireland would not sign off on the border, as matters stand now. | Varadkar played his ace. He warned May that unless he received a formal, written guarantee that a hard border would not be reintroduced, Ireland would veto Britain’s summit request that phase one of the negotiations be concluded and the talks move on to a UK-EU trade deal. Brexit-backing politicians had not “thought all this through”, Varadkar said, but now he was determined to concentrate minds. While EU member states might agree “sufficient progress” has been made on the other phase one issues – Britain’s divorce bill and citizens’ rights – Ireland would not sign off on the border, as matters stand now. |
| This stark threat to capsize the government’s lagging Brexit timetable and torpedo the crucial trade talks before they are launched caught May by surprise. So, too, did the fact that Varadkar’s tough stance had the backstage backing of Barnier and the EU commission. Has it worked? Behind the scenes, officials are scurrying to make up for lost time, looking to convince European counterparts that a solution is attainable. Ministers, instead of fobbing off critics, are belatedly engaging. They point out, reasonably, that future arrangements at the Irish border partly depend on agreement on the broader UK-EU trade relationship. If a high-access, low-friction deal can be achieved, the border will not loom so large. If the opposite occurs, or there is no deal, all bets are off. At least they finally acknowledge the problem. | This stark threat to capsize the government’s lagging Brexit timetable and torpedo the crucial trade talks before they are launched caught May by surprise. So, too, did the fact that Varadkar’s tough stance had the backstage backing of Barnier and the EU commission. Has it worked? Behind the scenes, officials are scurrying to make up for lost time, looking to convince European counterparts that a solution is attainable. Ministers, instead of fobbing off critics, are belatedly engaging. They point out, reasonably, that future arrangements at the Irish border partly depend on agreement on the broader UK-EU trade relationship. If a high-access, low-friction deal can be achieved, the border will not loom so large. If the opposite occurs, or there is no deal, all bets are off. At least they finally acknowledge the problem. |
| May is now reduced to hoping that a number of things, over which she has little or no control, do or do not happen. She must hope her advisers can conjure up a convincing border plan in time for the EU summit. She must hope her narrow-minded allies in the Democratic Unionist party, who unhelpfully accuse Varadkar of hijacking Brexit to promote a united Ireland, will fall into line. She must hope a possible, unrelated snap general election in the Republic does not complicate matters further. And, having repeated the classic 19th-century British politician’s mistake of neglecting Ireland, May must hope the EU proves more forgiving, more flexible and more far-sighted than she. | May is now reduced to hoping that a number of things, over which she has little or no control, do or do not happen. She must hope her advisers can conjure up a convincing border plan in time for the EU summit. She must hope her narrow-minded allies in the Democratic Unionist party, who unhelpfully accuse Varadkar of hijacking Brexit to promote a united Ireland, will fall into line. She must hope a possible, unrelated snap general election in the Republic does not complicate matters further. And, having repeated the classic 19th-century British politician’s mistake of neglecting Ireland, May must hope the EU proves more forgiving, more flexible and more far-sighted than she. |
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