Coveney warns top Brexiteer to brush up on Irish history
SIMON Coveney has told leading Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg to ‘focus on Irish history’, as he warned that a hard Brexit would threaten peace here.
With fears growing of a no-deal British exit from the EU, tensions rose when Tory MP Mr Rees-Mogg tweeted that there is ‘no need for the backstop’.
The backstop was agreed between the EU and Britain to ensure that a hard border would not be brought back to Ireland, and the Tánaiste warned of the threat to peace that ‘so many people have worked so hard to create’.
He also told British politicians that London and not Dublin bears the ‘primary responsibility’ for avoiding a hard border in the event of a no-deal Brexit.
Mr Rees-Mogg made his comment after the Government here decided not to make provisions for a border in their no-deal contingency plans. But Mr Coveney said: ‘I remind people this is not just the responsibility of the Irish Government and EU. The UK has an obligations under the Good Friday Agreement.
‘They are shared co-guarantors of that agreement. The British prime minister has said many times that a physical border infrastructure should not and cannot reemerge on the island of Ireland, and [Northern Secretary] Karen Bradley has said, “Deal or no deal, we have to ensure there is no border infrastructure on the island of Ireland”.’
The threat of a no-deal Brexit comes because leading Brexiteers are rejecting Theresa May’s negotiated Withdrawal Agreement as it contains the backstop which would keep the UK remain in the EU customs union until another solution is found. Mr Rees-Mogg had responded to news that Ireland was not preparing for a hard border by tweeting: ‘No deal means no hard border so no need for the backstop.’
But Mr Coveney strongly rejected the idea and called on Mr Rees-Mogg to focus on why avoiding a border North is so important.
He said: ‘I’m not going to get into commenting on Jacob Rees-Mogg or the comments that he makes, other than to say the Irish Government, from the very outset, saw the dangers and continues to see the dangers of the potential corrosive effect of border infrastructure between the two jurisdictions on this island, upsetting the normality that so many people have worked so hard to create over the last 20 years and before that.’ He added: ‘Many people paid the ultimate price because of the absence of a successful peace process.
‘So I would say that all legislators in Westminster do need to remind themselves of why we are actually talking about a backstop in the first place, and the history between these two islands, which is deep, which is close, which is desperately tragic for a large part of that history, and this is why we are trying to find a solution here that everybody can live with.’
He added: ‘People like Jacob Rees-Mogg, in my view, would do well to focus on Irish history.’ He conceded that the backstop had turned Brexit negotiations into a case of Ireland versus the UK for some.
‘I think it’s true to say that the backstop has caused a lot of political tension and friction in Westminster, and between certain parties in Northern Ireland,’ he said.
‘But I think some people have misinterpreted what the backstop is aiming to do. It has become something that it isn’t in terms of the political debate. The backstop has become an inter-party debating issue as a point of difference between people and as a point of tension, certainly.
‘That’s very regrettable from our perspective. We don’t want to be in the spotlight here. We certainly don’t want Northern Ireland or the peace process to be the subject of rank or political division.’
But he said the backstop, in its current form, was shaped by the UK’s own red lines, and that it was extraordinary ‘to somehow blame Ireland for trying to protect the peace process.’ He added: ‘I can’t allow Ireland to blamed here. We are simply trying to protect our core national interest and the interests of this island across the two jurisdictions.’
‘Can’t let Ireland be blamed’