NO UPSIDE TO BREXIT
Taoiseach tells US audience that leaving EU has no positives for anyone... but Ireland will suffer more than other member states
BREXIT has no ‘upside’, the Taoiseach declared in Washington yesterday.
But Leo Varadkar warned that Ireland would also end up a loser.
‘We will suffer more negative economic impacts than any other EU member state,’ he told foreign policy experts at the Brookings Institute.
‘Ireland regrets the decision of the United Kingdom to leave the European Union. As we see it, there can be no upside,’ he said.
This statement was an apparent echo of EU Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker’s vow that the UK would come to regret leaving.
Mr Varadkar said that after years of moving closer to its European partners, the UK had ‘taken the decision to move away from us’.
He added: ‘That’s why we must insist that there is no return to a hard border, that the Common Travel Area is protected, and that the rights and freedoms of Irish citizens in the North are defended and advanced, because Irish citizens in Northern Ireland are European citizens even after Brexit.’
Despite the downside, Ireland must nonetheless respect the decision of its near neighbour, he said. ‘More widely, Brexit poses serious challenges to Ireland – and, given the strength of our ties to, and engagement with the UK, we will suffer more negative economic impacts than any other EU member state,’ Mr Varadkar said.
Ireland wanted a comprehensive future relationship between the EU and the UK, Mr Varadkar said, one that maximised economic engagement and trade. Ireland also wants ongoing cooperation in areas such as combatting terrorism and international crime, he said.
Both the Government and people of Ireland are strongly committed to the EU, he reassured his American listeners.
The Taoiseach said: ‘In the most recent polls, over 80% of Irish people support EU membership. As a small country, we know that our interests and values are best advanced and protected through a union of 500 million people.
‘Though our nearest neighbour, the United Kingdom, may be leaving the European Union, we are a founder member of the Single Market, our single currency, the euro, and Pesco, Europe’s enhanced co-operation in defence and security. We will always be at the heart of Europe.’
Over the last 20 years, the peace process and Ireland and Britain’s common membership of the EU had made it possible to render the border on our island ‘all but invisible,’ he said.
‘The economic benefits of this invisible border have been hugely significant to North/South trade and the all-island economy, but also to the normalising of wider social and political relations. We are determined to ensure that these advances are not reversed.’
Next month marks the 20th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, he noted, before going on to warn that it was under ‘real threat’ from Brexit. The deal had ended decades of conflict in the North and secured a lasting peace, transforming political relationships.
But continuing differences between the political parties representing the two communities meant that there has been no power-sharing Executive in Belfast for some time, he said, remarking: ‘Its absence is corrosive and damaging.’
Just as importantly, it meant that the voice of the people of Northern Ireland had not been heard in the negotiations on the terms under which the UK will leave the EU, ‘even though it will be of great consequence for them’, the Taoiseach said.
‘The majority of people in Northern Ireland voted to stay in the European Union, even now the majority want to stay in the EU’s Customs Union and Single Market. Brexit is a real threat to the Good Friday Agreement.’
While the path to peace could be ‘a long and bumpy one’, Ireland would continue to work closely with the British government and the parties to find an agreed basis for the restoration of the North’s institutions, he said.
And last night, the Taoiseach offered an olive branch to unionist parties in the North. At a gathering to mark the anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, Mr Varadkar said he recognised that ‘recent statements and actions, including the Irish Government’s, about Brexit have been seen as unwelcome or intrusive’.
‘If that is the case,’ he went on. ‘I want to make it clear that it was not our intention. I want to repeat that we have no hidden agenda.
‘My only agenda is the Good Friday Agreement – the principle of consent, peaceful politics, the democratic institutions, reconciliation and cooperation.’
‘We’ll be at the heart of Europe’