A Rashers Tierney-style independence for Britain

‘They see opportunities for Britain to sell whisky to the Mexicans’

IT was delightful to learn that since we joined “Europe” in 1973, Ireland has largely relied on British civil servants to transpose EU directives into common law.

In the mind’s eye it creates a vision of someone on the Dublin side arriving back into the office on Tuesday after a big weekend, checking his Inbox and finding the usual document headlined For The Attention Of Paddy.

It reminds us of a similar vision suggested in this column a few weeks ago, whereby Paddy has been showing up for years with John Bull, throwing the keys across the table to him, and saying, “you’re driving tonight, mate” — such a happy scene indeed, which has now been transformed by the Brexit vote into the deeply disturbing scenario of Paddy showing up to find that John Bull is passed out drunk, his face in the soup.

Yes for a long time, we just “got” each other, Paddy and John Bull. But now this constant companion of ours on whom we could always rely to look after the stuff we couldn’t handle, everything from abortion to the transposition of EU directives into common law, is suddenly behaving quite out of character.

And what is even more disturbing for us, is that we are starting to recognise the outline of the character that our old friend is beginning to resemble, because it is not entirely unlike that of a certain individual whom we see sometimes when we look in the mirror.

Yes we have been there. We have been that soldier, lost to the world.

We have enjoyed a Rashers Tierney form of independence, the sort that allows fellows in the pub to exaggerate and to fulminate like poor Rashers, to declare that we have taken our country back, all the while leaving it exactly where it was, for anything that matters.

So when we hear suggestions from the British side that they are now considering paying billions to the EU for the financial “passporting” needed by the City of London in the event of Brexit, we can identify quite readily with this situation in which they have found themselves.

Like us, they want to declare their independence from this terrible empire, but by the way, they don’t really want to give up any of the good things.

They want to indulge in their own weird brand of nationalist eejitry, but they don’t want it to cost anything.

Ah yes we remember it well, how we used to feel free to hold up the proverbial bar, declaring our support for a United Ireland, until the moment that somebody might mention the financial Armageddon which would immediately ensue if the Brits stopped taking care of that bill for us too. You could call it the “do-youwant-to-take-it-outside?” moment.

And mostly we got away with it, because like I said, Paddy and John Bull, they just “got” each other. The repressed character of the Brit, his unwillingness to make a scene in public, would lead him to tolerate some of the more egregious outpourings of Paddy, intoning in that paternalistic style of his, “please forgive my friend’s exuberance, and be assured that I will pay for any damage which may arise”.

Because he himself was guilty of a certain kind of institutionalised insincerity, John Bull understood that we didn’t mean it either, that when he next met us in private we would not be annoying him about any 32-county republic subsidised entirely by ourselves, we would just be grateful that such things will never happen in our lifetime, and hopefully in anyone’s else’s lifetime.

He could not have foreseen, that one day he would be indulging himself in such puerile narratives.

But having succumbed in the Brexit referendum to an astonishing attack of selfinflicted eejitry, Britain now has to start manoeuvring itself in all sorts of excruciating ways in order to pretend that this thing is going to turn out grand — like that announcement made by Andrea Leadsom’s department last week in which they saw exciting new opportunities for Britain to sell afternoon tea items to the Japanese, beer to the Australians, and whisky to the Mexicans.

As if it never occurred to them before, that such wondrous things were possible.

And while John Bull has certain gifts of duplicity and mendacity and whatever you need to pretend you’re doing the opposite of what you intend, he probably doesn’t quite have Paddy’s enormous gifts in these areas honed over the decades, his range.

Moreover, while we were fortunate enough to receive at times the amused tolerance of our imperial foe, Britain is hardly going to get any kind of loving grace out of the Germans. As for the French, not only do they not “get” each other, they just don’t like each other.

You can just about get away with your Rashers Tierney independence if you are Rashers Tierney, or at least come from the same place as him, but you need a bit of sympathy too, to keep going with that carry-on. Even a touch of pity.

So if Britain wants to keep all the good things about the EU, while remaining “free”, it will need to draw on all that experience, all those years of observing Paddy doing his dance. Because we are no longer some amusing charlatan to them, tragically we have become the template.

As they are now, so once were we.