John Downing: Farage noise is of zero use to us
IT’S a fair bet that if Irish rather than British voters had opted to leave the EU in June 2016, we’d have reversed that referendum vote by now.
That may be partly why many Irish people continue to ask periodically: Any fear Britain will change its mind and stay in the European Union?
Well, in the past few days that question has been definitively answered by somebody who knows what he is talking about. Irish EU Commissioner Phil Hogan has pointed out that the United Kingdom is set to leave the EU.
Both the main parties in Britain, the ruling Conservatives and the Labour Party in opposition, have backed the Brexit vote outcome. The only thing up for grabs is the terms upon which Britain parts company, something of the keenest interest to us here on this island.
Mr Hogan told the Association of European Journalists in Dublin that, if Britain persists with its move to leave the EU single market and customs union, some form of renewed Border on this island appears “inevitable”. There is an emerging hope in London that British Prime Minister Theresa May just might be moving towards keeping the United Kingdom within the EU customs union. The notion was talked up by UK Home Secretary Amber Rudd on BBC television yesterday following heavy hints by Mrs May over the weekend.
But the ensuing furore within the divided British Conservative Party shows that the prime minister will have to batter her way towards that end. She may well have to appeal across all the British political parties for support, even to her Labour adversaries.
As the Brexit talks enter a new and decisive phase, dysfunction, mistrust and doubt abound in London. That means EU Brexit negotiators still do not know what the UK government wants to achieve. None of the signs emanating from London offered too much hope. A leaked government study concluded that Britain would be worse off after Brexit under all of the likely scenarios.
But that study comes rather late in the day and the harmful effects of Brexit are only feeding themselves slowly into the UK economy. There is no groundswell of opinion reversal on Brexit among UK voters.
Opinion polls there suggest a very similar result to that delivered 20 months ago. Commissioner Hogan is right. We must not waste too much precious time looking for a Brexit reversal.
IRISH voters have twice reversed referendum results. In 2002, we reversed a referendum outcome given 18 months earlier to reject the EU Nice Treaty. Again, in 2009, we reversed the outcome of a 2008 referendum on the EU Lisbon Treaty.
Time and place for each of those re-runs looked a bit shabby. But it has to be said that on each occasion the turnout was higher and the winning margins more convincing.
Equally, the referendum re-runs have not remained an ongoing source of major controversy. In fact, approval ratings for Ireland’s European Union membership remain very high.
But these referendum re-runs were among the points broached by Brexiteer Nigel Farage during his weekend visit to Dublin. He was advocating a so-called “Irexit” – a term even uglier than the one which applies to his own country’s parting of the ways. “There are lots of people in the professional media, civil service and political classes who love the European Union, but actually, if you go a few miles outside Dublin, it’s not all that pro-EU. I’ve never bought this argument that Ireland is totally pro-EU,” he told RTÉ presenter Marian Finucane on Saturday.
Well, British Europhobes’ advice to Irish people about the EU is of no value whatever. Comments such as those of Mr Farage are simply time-wasting noise.
Our EU story is vastly different to that of a nation in trauma, still trying to shake off its legacy of a long-disappeared empire, and still trying to find a new place in the world order.
Happily, there is no taste for following them on this muddleheaded attempt to somehow find a sepia-tinted old version of a Britain which has passed.
The big and real question for the coming weeks is whether Mrs May has the courage to take on the ultra-Brexiteer opponents within her own party and make the case for a less suicidal form of Brexit.
Our EU story is vastly different to that of a nation in trauma, still trying to shake off its legacy of a disappeared empire, and still trying to find a new place in the world order