The European Union is very fond of freedom of movement ... until, that is, you try to leave
Why can’t you just quit an institution — any institution — if that is your express wish, asks Pol O Muiri
❝ I doubt that many Brexiteers thought the border would become such a source of division
❝ Whether you are in favour of leaving or staying, the alarm bells must be ringing loudly
Is Brexit the new peace process? You might well remember that peace process thing? It involved, and involves, long talks, disagreements, rows over a border, money (for some), rows over what democracy means, rows over what treaties mean, bluster, bullying and more talks.
Does this all sound familiar? The peace process has never actually come to an end to give us simply peace. It, and all the arguments around it, have been with us now for 20 years and counting (yes, the alternative is much, much worse).
Perhaps we need to rename the United Kingdom’s wee row with the European Union as the “Brexit process”. Technically, the whole thing should come to a conclusion at the end of March and we should all have Brexited into the great unknown.
Depending on whose side you are on, Exodus will be marked with a weeping and gnashing of teeth that would give the Old Testament a run for its money. Or the occasion will be celebrated with the kind of party that the Great Gatsby wished he had organised but never got around to. We will all become the lost tribe of Israel, or be totes smashed on champers.
No one should be surprised, however, if the Brexit process continues and continues and continues. Further long talks, rows over borders and money, more talks and more rows over
what the whole thing means seem to be inevitable.
It must be some surprise, a shock indeed, for voters in Britain to realise that what they think democracy means and what the European Union thinks democracy means are not exactly the same.
You got the sense that, when the result was in, that those in favour of Brexit thought the game was over. Did many of them really imagine the pushback that would come from vested interests and the Europhiles?
I doubt that many Brexiteers thought the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic would become such a source of division.
I doubt, too, that many of them had bothered to pay much attention to Irish politics before that.
Had they done so, they might have noticed how the European Union made the Republic’s electorate vote again, not once but twice, when the voters dumped the Nice and Lisbon Treaties. The Irish voted the wrong way but, thankfully, the EU, with the help of an enlightened Irish establishment, were on hand to help them vote again and get it right.
No one, I suspect, thought that the same thing would happen in London.
After all the UK is a huge, modern and rich state of many millions, with a great sense of pride in its history and institutions and not a small, impoverished one that would sell its granny for a grant. There are undoubtedly many, many questions about leaving and, indeed, remaining in the European Union. They do deserve to be discussed. It is certainly one of the biggest political questions of our age.
However, whether you are in favour of leaving or staying, the alarm bells about the whole process must be ringing loudly by now.
Ultimately, it is a very simple question: why can’t you leave an institution, any institution, if that is your will?
You can leave the Church of Ireland, the Catholic Church, the Presbyterian Church, the golf club, the rugby club, the GAA club, believe in God or not.
You can leave one university for another, one job for another, choose one newspaper over another.
You can change banks, trade in the Volvo for a Volkswagen, holiday in France rather than Spain, drink red wine instead of white, Peroni instead of Guinness. You can leave the hockey club for the hurley club, the karate club for the kung fu club. You can even leave Sinn Fein.
In essence, you can, within the limits of the law, do pretty much what you want in Western Europe. The one exception, it seems, is that you cannot — cannot — leave the European Union.
Bizarrely, the European Union values freedom of movement, except if you want to move out.
How odd, too, that the European Union has succeed so well in bringing the Brits and the Irish together, of uniting them in the common bond of voting the wrong way.
More and more the Brexit process has become a mad game of ping pong in which the head of Ping Pong UK rings up the head of the European Ping Pong Union to apologise and to say thanks for the memories, but we do not want to play ping pong anymore.
We have enjoyed ping pong over the years. It was not really cricket, but we did our best. It is true that not everyone here liked to play ping pong. It had its critics. We did our best to explain the rules of ping pong, but they became so complicated. Thanks a million, but we think that playing ping pong is holding us back from playing over games. All the best and cheerio.
Mon Dieu! replies the head of the European Ping Pong Union, I am sorry to hear that. Are you sure? Ping pong is the best club in the world. There is no better ping pong club anywhere. Indeed, did you not realise that, once you started playing ping pong, that it was for life? Did we forget to mention that? No one gets to give up ping pong.
But, hey, if you really, really, really want to leave, we will want billions by way of compensating us for the loss of a ping pong venue and the sandwiches and beer that we will not get to eat out of your fridge during future ping pong tournaments.
And, oh, I am not being petty here, but we want our table, net and ping pong paddles back. Just in case you decide to ping pong independently.
Mate, you know what you can do with your ping pong paddles...