Westminster’s perilous house of cards is tumbling over shambolic Brexit bargaining
THE House of Cards that is Westminster politics these days is tumbling down before our eyes in the aftermath of the EU/UK agreement. The resignation of Dominic Raab, Theresa May’s main Brexit negotiator, was the clear indication that there is little possibility of the deal getting through the UK parliament.
A few weeks ago, in this paper, I suggested that May would have to repeat her ‘twinkle toes’ dancing antics in order to keep all diametrically opposed wings of her party together. Unfortunately for her, it seems as if she will have to do a lot more dancing in order to save the Brexit project and her own political skin. By agreeing the deal with the EU, she has now managed to unite hardline Brexiteers and leading Remain advocators such as former prime minister Tony Blair, in their opposition to what’s on the table. The current Labour Party, through their leader and main spokespersons, were not giving much help to her, clearly having one eye on a possible general election.
In fairness, May has come out fighting, challenging opponents of the deal to come up with something better. She is correct when she states that ‘one simple fact remains, and that is that nobody has produced an alternative proposal’ which delivers on the promise to prevent a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. She is going for broke by forcing an agreement through her cabinet, despite considerable dissent, and then proceeding to, in effect, appeal ‘over the heads of the MPs’ to the business and the wider community.
Political observers in Westminster have marvelled at how May, when her political back is against the wall, has been able to survive – but it seems that she is fast running out of road. It appears she has made a judgment call that eventually, a silent majority of MPs across the political divide in Westminster will come together to see the deal through. This would require a significant number of opposition MPs crossing the floor of Westminster to support the government. At the moment this looks highly unlikely, particularly given the tough stance adopted by Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party.
Just after the Tory government, under then prime minister David Cameron, announced that they were having a referendum on leaving the EU, I wrote in this paper that they did not give Ireland much thought when making this decision. By gum, they must be well fed-up of the influence of Ireland on their political affairs. History shows that these two islands are inextricably linked in a myriad of ways, not least when it comes to politics. And yet, it seems as if no one in the UK system, said, ‘Hang on a minute, what’s going to happen at the border in Ireland if the UK and Northern Ireland leave the EU?’ If Cameron and Co. were warned, they stand indicted for making one of the most disastrous political decisions in recent times. It was often said, even during the Troubles, that there was a huge level of ignorance in Westminster regarding politics on the island of Ireland. Indeed, over my years of dealing with British politicians, I was always struck by how only those who had a personal interest, perhaps due to family ties, had any real understanding of what was going on in Ireland. Leading politicians often made howling mistakes in their public utterances regarding Ireland.
For instance, even recently in the Brexit discussions, former foreign secretary Boris Johnson stated that the Irish border issue was ‘only a little problem’ and that there are only a ‘few firms actually using the border regularly’. He said it was been given far too much attention in discussions.
At the end of the day, virtually the entire negotiations between the UK and the EU revolved around how to deal with the Irish border issue. And this point was rammed home by May on Thursday evening when she said that ‘all other approaches – Norway, Canada-plus – would require a backstop, referring to our border. Even the most ardent Brexiteers and Unionists do not wish that we go back to a situation of a hard border on the island of Ireland, and yet, none of them have come up with any realistic solution as to how this can be achieved.
None of them have conceded that the EU has moved its position in an attempt to compromise, namely, agreeing to a UK-wide backstop (something which they initially rejected) in place of an island of Ireland backstop.
The British political system can just not rid itself of the ‘Irish problem’. To rub salt into the Brexiteers’ wounds, they had to find out about the breaking deal through RTÉ’s Tony Connelly’s report from Brussels. Leading Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg was dripping with sarcasm when he decried the fact that he had to hear about all about it through the Irish media. The Irish Government, while clearly delighted with the outcome, were remaining relatively tight-lipped – probably remembering a previous occasion, last year, when they were out of the traps too early, causing huge upset to the unionists.
IN fairness to Barnier and his team, they stuck to their task and fully backed the Irish Government’s position. It was always the case from the start of these discussions that the EU were going to ensure that the British did not exit on terms that could be seen as being favourable. They couldn’t afford to – if they were to do that, other member states might wish to follow the UK’s example.
That is why there are really no upsides for the British as they say goodbye to the EU. The British public have quickly found out that all the nonsense which they had been fed about ‘taking back control’ is an illusion, and that no matter how they extricate themselves from the EU, they will be big losers. Apparently, surveys in UK are showing that the public are fed-up with Brexit. With such turmoil in Westminster, they can expect many more months of disruption.
The danger for us, here in Ireland, is that the turbulence in Westminster may lead to the UK crashing out with no deal. If that were to happen, our EU allies would quickly turn to us and demand that we put measures in place on our border in order to protect the EU’s wider interests.