Could Martin be plotting the path towards a border poll?
The strategic thinker will be aware that a vote on the border could give him his moment in history, writes Gavin Duffy
IN the week that Taoiseach Micheal Martin was criticised for failing to appoint anyone from the North to the Seanad, the unimaginable — a border poll to be canvassed for during Martin’s term as Taoiseach — may become more tangible in the months ahead. How things have changed in 16 months. In February 2019, SDLP leader Colum Eastwood said: “There will be a special place reserved in hell for those who call for a border poll in Ireland with no plan and idea on how to actually deliver it.” He was speaking to his new partner Fianna Fail at its ard fheis in Dublin.
Today, Eastwood might be inclined to say there’s a place in hell for those who maintain the border with no plan and idea how to operate it under World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules or police it as terrorists-turned-smugglers subvert it.
What has changed? Everything. Of course, there is the global pandemic’s escalating death toll and widespread economic disruption. Then there’s the UK hurtling towards a no-deal Brexit, which would trigger WTO tariffing at our land border.
But last week it became apparent to everyone in Ireland that our border is becoming a wider problem. We learnt Irish people may not be allowed to travel, for business or pleasure, to three of the EU’s largest economies, Germany, France and the Netherlands. Our long-standing, reciprocal travel arrangement with the UK and a shared land border means, though we made huge sacrifices to reduce the spread of Covid-19, we look set to remain barred from those countries. Indeed, the border is going to thwart most things both Northern Ireland and the Republic do to revive their economies.
Very soon, our new Government will be faced with a stark choice. Does it re-enforce our border, create a hard border, or might the Government then commence a programme for the ultimate removal of the border, seeking a poll? Under the Good Friday Agreement, only the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland can call a border poll and a recent Belfast High Court case (McCord v Secretary of State) could not establish a clear means to trigger one.
What evidence then is there that Micheal Martin would even consider this course of action?
The biggest change is this. In the past it was argued that the Republic of Ireland could not afford Northern Ireland. Now it is becoming ever more obvious neither can we afford the status quo. But what if the transition costs to a new All-Ireland entity were also paid for by the European Union, with contributions in the form of horizon payments from the United Kingdom?
As Fianna Fail entered a historic coalition with Fine Gael (and the Green Party), it was frequently claimed there is now very little difference between the two parties that emerged from the Civil War. But the one key difference is Fine Gael views Northern Ireland as a separate entity attached to the UK, whereas Fianna Fail, the Republican Party, genuinely believes the people of Northern Ireland’s futures are better served in an All-Ireland entity.
Please note the change in mood music. A united Ireland is off the table. A growing number of unionists have an open mind to a closer relationship with the Republic, but all of them fear the triumphalism that would be displayed by Republicans in the event of a united Ireland.
Even the Taoiseach’s adversaries in Fianna Fail admit he is a strategic thinker. One complained that not only did they not get a hoped-for portfolio, but they didn’t even get a text to be forewarned. In this regard, the Cork man has form. In January 2003, he announced that he would introduce legislation to make Ireland the first country in the world to ban smoking in workplaces. His party colleagues at the time were livid that they didn’t even get a heads up. But also, it became obvious that the then minister for health and children had long been quietly working on his plan with a strategy to see it through successfully. As regards his lengthy courtship and his eventual success in partnering with the SDLP, and together with his party colleague senator Mark Daly’s roadmap to an All-Ireland solution, the strategic thinker has been reportedly plotting an initiative on Northern Ireland to be sprung from his department’s new Shared Island unit.
Micheal Martin has waited nine long years, suffered the ignominy of propping up a Fine Gael-led government, gambled his party’s very future by coalescing with Fine Gael, even signing an agreement for shortest ever term as our country’s leader, all just to be Taoiseach, or is he about to do something bold and historic?
A civil servant, the late Brendan O’Regan, created the economic free zone at Shannon, a world first, back in 1947, predating the Treaty of Rome by a decade, which created the European Economic Community. The significance of this is that the EU has always acknowledged Ireland is permitted to operate an economic free zone since joining in 1973.
Therefore, there is a precedent to propose converting Northern Ireland to an economic free zone, remaining part of the United Kingdom, but in transition to becoming an independent state within a Federal Ireland.
This all comes with the same type of health warning on the packets of fags when Martin banned the nation from smoking in workplaces. It is merely speculation.
Why would a strategic thinker do something that neutralises his government’s main opposition party, Sinn Fein, locks in his partners, Fine Gael and the Green Party, puts his partner, the SDLP, in a lead position on the North’s future, and gives himself a glorious moment in history, when he is leading the commemorations of Irish independence in Dublin Castle on December 6, 2022, in has last week as Taoiseach?
‘Please note the change in mood music. A united Ireland is off the table’