Don’t back down on the border, Leo
MY late dad, John Howlin, was a trade union official in Wexford for more than 40 years and he knew a thing or two about negotiations.
As any trade unionist will tell you, the final hours are when it comes down to the wire and they are the hardest part to deal with.
This is when you have to decide whether the offer on the table will satisfy those you represent or whether you need to push for some more concessions with the risk the whole deal might collapse.
More often than not, you need to make these decisions at the last minute.
It now seems Leo Varadkar sold us a pup when he promised an open Irish border would be “bulletproof, rock solid and cast iron”. It is no surprise the UK’S Minister for Brexit, Dominic Raab, is calling for the EU to drop its demand for a border agreement.
To be clear, what we want and need is an insurance policy. We want a backstop legal agreement to be signed by Britain and the EU to guarantee that no matter what happens in future, the border will always be as open as it is now. This was promised in December 2017 in a joint EU-UK communication.
Prime Minister Theresa May has said several times she is committed to an open border. Mrs May now claims the Brexit negotiations are 95% done.
What is on the table is attractive to the EU. The British will pay £37billion [€42billion] to settle their debts and the rights of citizens in each other’s countries will be guaranteed into the future.
But there is no agreement on the Irish border.
We are now into the final, crunch phase of the talks. Labour warned the Government repeatedly we must not allow the Irish border to be part of the final horse-trading between the EU
and UK. Just two weeks ago, Mrs May talked about her “profound responsibility” to the Good Friday Agreement and how life on both sides of the border must be allowed to continue as it does now.
But if the British were truly committed to the GFA, we could have had a separate legal agreement on just that. By mixing it in with the other Brexit issues,
Ireland’s concerns were always going to be a bargaining chip in these final talks.
I have no doubt about the firm commitment of Michel Barnier’s negotiation team to Ireland’s demands, as well as the solidarity of the 26 other EU member state governments for our insistence on no hard border. But that is not the point. What if the British government won’t fulfil can’t their or December promise to agree a permanent backstop? That’s what it looks like now.
All eyes are on the Taoiseach. Our friends across the EU are behind us but they need to know from him what direction to take the negotiations in.
The choice is now with Leo. He can
It is worth waiting for the next UK government to do a better deal BRENDAN HOWLIN YESTERDAY
choose whether or not to hold firm on our demand for an open border, while knowing that if the talks collapse with no deal, we will end up with border controls on our island.
The alternative is actually worse. If Leo blinks now and does not insist on an open border, there is a real risk the future relationship between the UK and EU will become so frosty border controls will be required for years to come.
I am confident the shock to the UK economy from no deal will be so bad the next government will come back to the table to make a better deal. If this is the case, the price for any pact with the EU must be Ireland’s red line issue of an open border.
The dogs on the street know the current British government is on borrowed time. It won’t be too long until there is a general election and there is a strong likelihood the British Labour Party will be in Downing Street afterwards.
They have already pledged to keep the UK close to the European Single Market and Customs Union, which means little change to existing border arrangements. If the current leaders can’t guarantee an open border, it is worth holding our nerve and waiting for the next British government to be in place to do a better deal with the EU.
That is the only way to get a firm guarantee the border will stay open to benefit all on our shared island for the foreseeable future.