HOW UK’S ELECTION AND BREXIT WILL IMPACT ON IRELAND

Leo Varadkar and the rest of the EU-27 need to offer the Tories a free gift in their self-inflicted hour of need, writes Colm McCarthy

THE Tory party, described by one-time leader William Hague as “an absolute monarchy tempered by periodic resort to regicide”, has in a short few years delivered the United Kingdom into a dreadful strategic cul-de-sac.

David Cameron, after his Brexit referendum gamble came unstuck a year ago, fell on his sword before the men in the grey suits came calling. Theresa May’s walk-on part in the Tories’ illustrious history, on most reckonings the oldest political party in the world, will not be long extended. The longevity and the taste for regicide are connected.

The 2015 Tory election victory was built on a scare story: the other lot will plunge the country into chaos, with a Labour government beholden to the unpredictable Scots. Vote for the grand old party and all will be taken care of. Two years later Britain is out of the European Union (details to follow, trust us) and a minority Tory administration leads the plucky islanders ever onward, ‘taking back control’ with the support of the Democratic Unionist Party. There really is a worse fate than being ordered around by devious foreigners in continental Europe, for example being ordered around by your kith and kin from Fermanagh.

Cameron’s departure last summer was followed by a dramatic Tory succession battle, in which the various contestants shot one another (or themselves) on live television, leaving just the MP for Maidenhead available for coronation. Presumed to be a safe pair of hands, she has been a disaster for Britain and the Conservative Party, elevating the unlikely figure of Jeremy Corbyn to the status of a credible alternative prime minister. Her stewardship of the good ship Global Britain has been a sorry spectacle, punctuated with mangled evasions (“Brexit means Brexit”, “strong and stable”). The temptation for schadenfreude should be resisted everywhere in Europe and especially in Ireland. A weakened UK is bad news for this country.

It is early to speculate but this does not look like a five-year government. The sources of instability include the impressive leader of the Scottish Conservative Party, Ruth Davidson, who managed to win eight seats for the Tories north of Hadrian’s Wall. Ruth is gay, and should get on famously with Arlene Foster, whose DUP party represents Western Europe’s last stand for obscurantism.

The Conservative manifesto, whoever wrote it, is a suicide note to history. It commits the incoming government to a hard Brexit, outside both the single market and the customs union, and reinforces the extraordinary illusion that a no-deal outcome constitutes some kind of credible threat, sure to create panic in the chancelleries of Europe. Happily the reaction of European politicians to May’s spectacular own goal, the apt description adopted by Guy Verhofstadt, has been solicitous and concerned.

The reaction to British self-harm in this country should eschew excessive concentration on the implications for Northern Ireland. What’s bad for the UK is bad for each of its constituents but a weakened Britain is unwelcome regardless of more parochial concerns — who wants to see the next-door neighbours abandon their own best interests with such unconscious casualness? There is no longer any likelihood, thankfully, of ‘special status’ for Northern Ireland as some kind of EU protectorate outside the UK. This wheeze, dreamt up by the everindustrious Sinn Fein brains trust, managed to attract unthinking support from people who should know better, including some on the Fianna Fail frontbench. Arlene Foster will, one hopes, have already deactivated this incendiary device.

The election non-result poses a new twist in the Brexit dilemma for the Irish government, which has handled this unwelcome shock adroitly to date. It now appears that the March 29, 2019 date for Britain’s extrusion from the EU is simply not consistent with an orderly damagelimitation process. The Tory

party is fundamentally split on Europe (as is Labour) and the new government is less likely to manage Brexit well. The two-year timetable in Article 50, needlessly triggered by May in advance of the election, was designed as a disincentive for countries to quit the EU and to stack the cards in the exit process against the departing member. It has failed as a disincentive to exit — the British public have voted 52-48 to quit, and quit they will. In order to achieve a damage-limiting outcome it is now desirable to assist the British government by sacrificing the EU-27 negotiating advantage, which requires unanimous approval from all 27 remaining EU members. If the deadline, designed to discourage exit, remains in place having failed in its deterrent mission, the likelihood is a disastrous real-life test of the May mantra of “no deal is better than a bad deal”. Best not to check out whether this works, for Britain or for Europe.

It is in Ireland’s interests that Britain should be offered a transition arrangement, staying in both the single market and customs union for several years post-Brexit. A negotiation bust-up would be a disaster (especially for Britain) and is now more likely given the latest Conservative Party tutorial in statecraft. Leo Varadkar will inherit a well-prepared Irish negotiating position on Brexit, correctly focused on the desirability of a multi-year transition period. But the time available to negotiate a grown-up outcome was always too short and a further two months has now been squandered by the honourable member for Maidenhead. Varadkar should consider the option, provided for in Article 50, of championing a generous gesture from the EU-27 in Britain’s hour of need, namely the unrequited extension of the negotiation timetable. The timetable headlock has already failed to achieve its disincentive purpose and now increases the likelihood of the nodeal outcome so foolishly tabled by the Brexiteers. This outcome is in nobody’s interest — not Britain’s, not Europe’s and certainly not in the interest of Ireland north or south. An extension of the deadline, designed and consciously undertaken as a free gift to the departing UK, would set the framework for a realistic attempt at a damagelimiting outcome, including a transition deal and Britain’s long-term relation with both single market and customs union.

The prospect of an early election in Britain, possibly heralding a political realignment there, needs space to breathe and the EU which the British electorate was so rashly invited to depart could look very different a few years hence.

Writing on his Brexit Blog website, the University of London professor Chris Grey put it like this: “It is a deep irony that in the 2015 election the Tories warned of the chaos that would happen if they lost, and yet since then have unleashed a chaos unparalleled in modern British political history.”

Had Professor Grey been aware of the etymology of the word ‘Tory’ he might have been less surprised. The root is the Gaelic ‘toraidhe’, as in Tory Island in Donegal. In 17th century usage, when the predecessor of today’s Conservative Party first emerged in British politics, it meant outlaw or bandit; in the case of the islanders presumably it connotes piracy. It does not connote stability or strength, the dual buzzwords of Theresa May’s first, and likely last, encounter with the British voters.