Hardliners on both sides of Irish Sea have more in common than they admit
Most people won’t really care about the details of a Brexit deal, as long as it brings this interminable nightmare to an end, writes Eilis O’Hanlon
THERE is no better proof that Irish backstoppers and British Brexiteers are two sides of the same coin than the matching terror each felt at the thought that their man might have been the one to give ground, following last Thursday’s announcement that the Taoiseach and the UK prime minister could see a “pathway to a possible deal”.
There was, and still is, reason to be sceptical that a deal can be done, considering how far apart the two sides are. “Pathway” and “possible” both leave plenty of wriggle room.
There is also reason for doubt whether Boris Johnson can deliver his end of any bargain, parliamentary arithmetic being what it is. But the prospect of a breakthrough ought to have been a good news story after weeks in which worsening relations and increasingly belligerent rhetoric had made it seem as if no deal on October 31 was inevitable.
Instead the consternation in Brexiteer circles, spurred on by media whispers, that Boris might have “blinked”, was matched only by the concern in backstopper circles, prompted by alternative media rumours, that Leo might have been the one to give way.
Reliable details are still surprisingly scant, considering the speed with which previous proposals were leaked and then just as swiftly trashed. Media reports need to be taken with a whole oceanful of salt until officially confirmed. Most observers seem to think that it is Boris who has moved furthest.
But would it really be so bad if the Taoiseach has or had thrown Boris a lifeline?
If he grasped it, Leo would come out the hero, the man who avoided a no-deal Brexit.
If Boris threw it back in his face, then Leo would have been able to say he did everything he could to avoid catastrophe. There is a blame game going on, and Varadkar must be aware that it could hurt him.
Whatever actually happened at last Thursday’s meeting, holding out an olive branch would have been wise domestically. Sinn Fein — who issued a statement last Thursday calling on the EU to “stand firm”, for all the world like Orangemen yelling “no surrender” — are ready to rant and rave at Leo for “betraying” Northern nationalists, but Fianna Fail would not be able, credibly, to criticise Varadkar too harshly for being flexible.
At this stage, most people in Ireland and Britain alike don’t just want, but need, to move on.
Compromise might still not work. Even with negotiations picking up again in Brussels, there remains plenty of scope for failure. The UK’s business secretary, Andrea Leadsom, has ruled out a backstop under any circumstances. Boris has no easy “pathway” through his own party, whatever he might have agreed with Leo.
On the other side of the argument in Britain, ultra-Remainers seemed equally discombobulated at the prospect of compromise, with campaigning professor AC Grayling taking to Twitter to plead: “Dear Mr Varadkar, please do not make any deals with Johnson. We who are opposed to Brexit are on the brink of winning; don’t help the Brexiteers. The UK can and will stay in the EU.”
The note of panic was evident in every word.
That it has become an equally “do or die” issue for many pro-backstop politicians and commentators in Ireland is troubling, to say the least. They’re a mirror image of Brexiteers who, three years ago when the referendum was held, could imagine staying in the single market, but who now regard it as a matter of national honour to get out. Similarly in Ireland, many went from not knowing what a backstop even was to suddenly regarding it as the hill on which they were all prepared to die.
Absolute certainty is not always a good thing. Blurring the meanings was how the Belfast Agreement came about. It’s been fetishised since, but there’s actually remarkably little detail in that 1997 accord.
It’s essentially just a series of platitudinous fudges. Its significance lay in both sides agreeing to sign up to it and work within the spirit. That lack of clarity caused problems later on, because both sides were able to believe that they had agreed to certain things which in truth were contradictory.
Not being clearer about issues such as decommissioning also caused stumbling blocks.
But if it was possible to end a 30-year conflict by fudging issues such as decommissioning, it seems bizarre to insist that a deal isn’t possible between the EU and UK without nailing down exactly how to process the astonishingly tiny fraction of imports which, according to the chairman of the Revenue Commissioners, are currently checked by Irish customs.
The Belfast Agreement held without cast-iron guarantees. There’s no reason why, with sufficient goodwill on both sides, a Brexit fudge couldn’t work too.
The rough shape of the deal now being peddled seems to require simultaneously pretending that Northern Ireland is both the same as the rest of the UK, and different, just as the Belfast Agreement allowed people to believe at one and the same time that the union had been secured and that a united Ireland was on the cards. How would such high-level mental gymnastics work? Mistrust spoofers who claim to know for sure. It’s a work in progress. Instead of embracing creative ambiguity, though, compromise is being taken as a sign of weakness rather than strength.
It could be, as plenty of well-informed observers genuinely believe, that Leo would be punished by voters if he gives ground, even if the immediate result is that he gets a deal which avoids some of the dire economic outcomes predicted after a no-deal; but if they’re right, then Boris is unable to give ground either, for the exact same reason.
Someone still has to move. Do most people outside hardline Brexiteers and Backstoppers really care at this stage which side shifts first? The only certainty is that the current stasis cannot continue.
If this deal does the trick, two things will have been avoided — one is the risky no-deal Brexit beloved of Faragists. The other is revoking Brexit or having a second referendum, as longed for by Remainers. If a deal goes through between now and the end of October, or soon after, the UK will be out of the EU. Perhaps not in the purist way some in Britain wanted, but they will be out. That, fingers crossed, will change the toxic political dynamic.
Thoughts in Britain will turn to the next election, and whether voters want Boris Johnson or Jeremy Corbyn as prime minister, overseeing the next crucial stage of negotiations over the final shape of a trade deal between Britain and the EU. Likewise in Ireland, there may be some rumblings of discontent if the Taoiseach is seen to have given away “too much”, but that would surely be dwarfed by relief at having dodged a crash-out.
In both Ireland and Britain, people may very well soon forget what they’d been fighting over, and snap out of the Brexit trance, like the boys at the end of Lord of the Flies when, finally driven to the peak of mania, they run howling out on to the beach to find that the grown ups have arrived.
They break down crying, returning to the state of children.
It could still all fall apart. There is plenty of potential for things to go wrong between now and the EU summit. It’s hard to see how the resolve of the DUP and the hardest Tory Brexiteers won’t be sorely tested, if the current rumours about the shape of a possible deal are remotely close to the truth. It could even be that the media rumours bear no relation to reality.
The blunt advice of British government strategist Dominic Cummings at his Friday night briefing in Downing Street has to be considered: “Ignore the pundits. Pundits are d**ks.” It was still alarming to see the same reaction from both extremes to the chance that Leo and Boris might have squared the circle. As John Hume was fond of saying in the run-up to the Belfast Agreement: Who’s afraid of peace?
‘So what if the deal is a fudge, so long as it works?’