Special status would be deal of the century for the North
It is time negotiators took account of the DUP’s role in supporting Theresa May’s UK government, writes Willie Kealy
‘There is just one obstacle left, and on this issue we have stalemate’
THERE are many complicated mechanisms to do with taxes and tariffs associated with Britain’s proposed exit from the EU, but there are civil servants in 28 countries and armies of accountants perfectly happy to makes these their life’s work, so that the rest of us don’t have to be concerned.
We, and our political leaders, can concentrate instead on a few principal points, such as how much Britain will pay the EU as the price of this divorce (€39bn); ensuring EU citizens in Britain and British citizens in the EU will maintain their rights; and establishing the transition period as two years. But agreement has already been reached on these issues — though nothing is agreed until everything is agreed — so there is just one obstacle left, the Border between the Republic and Northern Ireland. And on this issue we have complete stalemate.
Theresa May can make no headway in Europe because she is insisting the only way to avoid a hard border is to do a deal the EU sees as Britain walking away from the responsibilities and costs of membership, while maintaining some of the benefits, and has instead offered to allow special status for just one part of the UK — Northern Ireland — which would remain in the EU customs union, thus avoiding the need for a northsouth border.
But there has to be a border somewhere to delineate the extremity of the EU.
And it is suggested that border would run down the middle of the Irish Sea between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.
Mrs May’s objection to this “system of checks”, as it is being called to avoid the word “border”, is that it would “not respect that Northern Ireland is an integral part of the United Kingdom”. Mrs May may actually believe that, but it doesn’t much matter, because she remains prime minister only as long as the DUP, led by Arlene Foster, says she can. And Arlene Foster certainly believes it.
So perhaps it is time the EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, and the Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, stepped off the merry-go-round briefly to have a chat with the DUP leader. Arlene Foster is up there in the North talking to nobody except fellow unionists who are happy enough to sit back and enjoy the spectacle, reinforcing their traditional tribal position and apparently untroubled by some very serious warnings that the peace process could be endangered.
I know the Taoiseach has said publicly that “nobody is trying to dispute the constitutional status of Northern Ireland”, and Mr Barnier has made it clear that the EU has “no ambitions to change the constitutional position of the North”. And even Sinn Fein has stopped calling for a border poll.
But have any of them actually sat down with the DUP leader and spelled out just how secure the position of Northern Ireland is within the UK? She cannot be unaware of the recent reports on what a united Ireland would mean. For the people of the Republic, the effect on our cost of living would be the equivalent of being plunged back into the worst of the recent recession, only with the potential to last much longer.
At the moment, the British people subsidise the less-than-dynamic northern economy to an inordinate degree — almost £25bn an- nually, accounting for about 25pc of the North’s GDP.
Some proponents of unification refer to this as the “affordability myth”. But it is no myth. For example, in the North, there are 205,700 public servants, or 11.4pc of the population. In the Republic, the equivalent figure is 403,000 or 8.4pc. In a united Ireland, would the North’s ratio be guaranteed or brought more in line with the southern figure? A question of extra cost or costly redundancies!
So it shouldn’t be hard to make the case to the DUP leader that the majority of the people of the Republic have no designs on the North. No offence, but we couldn’t afford you.
But there is another argument to be made to Arlene Foster, and it might prove more appealing. At the moment, and probably for the foreseeable future, the 27 EU countries negotiating with Britain will not agree to a deal that includes a hard border on the island of Ireland — not least because they have real concerns about the Good Friday Agreement.
And if Arlene Foster insists that Britain must continue to oppose what seems the only alternative — a deal requiring some kind of border between the North and the rest of the UK — there is a strong likelihood there will be no deal. In those circumstances, there will almost certainly be a hard border — the British see the “backstop” as part of a deal but not necessarily applicable if there is no deal.
Which brings us to the blindingly obvious reason she should not oppose the plan to give especially favourable terms to Northern Ireland, terms that won’t be available to any other part of the UK, while at the same time leaving the constitutional position of Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom unchanged.
For Northern Ireland, it’s the deal of the century.