Warning over Ireland’s threat to UK as Sunak visits Ulster
IRELAND would be “no friend” to the UK under Sinn Fein, a report backed by two former defence secretaries warns as Rishi Sunak visits Northern Ireland to mark the restoration of power to Stormont.
The Prime Minister will today meet the new leaders of its power-sharing executive after the Assembly finally reopened following a two-year stand-off.
Sinn Fein’s Michelle O’neill made history this weekend by becoming Northern Ireland’s first nationalist First Minister, in what some see as bringing a united Ireland a step closer. However, Sir Michael Fallon and Lord Robertson of Port Ellen warned that the UK needed to boost its defensive relationship with Ireland to help ensure the Republic was “capable of defending” itself, in a policy paper published today.
The former Tory and Labour defence secretaries have written the foreword to a report by the Policy Exchange think-tank that warns Sinn Fein’s “enduring Anglophobia” is at odds with Britain’s strategic interests.
With Irish elections next year it is possible that Sinn Fein, a Republican party, could soon hold power both in Dublin and Belfast for the first time. The report warns: “With polls predicting a Sinn Féin victory in the next general election, Irish security engagement with the UK and transatlantic alliance is likely to be jeopardised until the end of the decade.
“Sinn Féin’s enduring Anglophobia, and ambivalence towards transatlantic and European security, means that an Irish government it leads will be no friend to British strategic interests.”
It adds: “If Sinn Féin wins in 2025, the UK is therefore looking at many more years of an unco-operative, and likely hostile, neighbour in the face of growing external threats.”
Mr Sunak is due to be welcomed at Stormont Castle today by Ms O’neill and Emma Little-pengelly, the new deputy first minister from the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), having arrived last night to meet community figures such as emergency responders on his seventh visit as Prime Minister.
The Stormont impasse ended after the DUP dropped its opposition to power-sharing last month following months of negotiations with the UK Government. An extra £3.3 billion was given to Northern Ireland as part of the deal, as well as new legal assurances over limiting checks on goods moving from there to and from Great Britain.
Speaking on Sky News yesterday, Ms O’ Neill said a “decade of opportunity” was just starting for her party.
Over the weekend, she highlighted similarities in priorities with Ms Littlepengelly despite their political differences, noting areas of policy “overlap” such as affordable childcare.
In the Policy Exchange report, Sir Michael, who was defence secretary from 2014 to 2017, and Lord Robertson, who was in the role between 1997 and 1999, warn that “little attention” was paid to Ireland’s security after the Cold War. They write: “The growing Russian, Iranian and Chinese presence in the Republic poses a backdoor threat to
the United Kingdom itself.” They go on to say: “The Republic plays very little part in European defence co-operation; its forces, especially maritime, need rapid strengthening to be capable of defending against today’s threats.
“The UK should certainly encourage this, building on the initial Uk-ireland Defence Agreement signed in 2015. But the current threats to our own security are growing and urgent.
“What the Government should do immediately is to rediscover the vital strategic importance of Northern Ireland, and fortify this weak spot in our own security.”
They warn that the return of an aggressive Russia “actively waging war in Europe” has placed renewed strategic importance on the UK’S Atlantic flank and say the Ministry of Defence should build more naval bases and military airfields in Northern Ireland.
“As defence secretaries in different governments at different times, we know that little attention was paid to the security of the island of Ireland in the immediate aftermath of the Cold War,” they write, adding: “Re-setting the importance of the Western approaches is all the more urgent in the... geopolitical climate.”
The report echoes concerns from senior defence chiefs in recent years, including from Adml Sir Tony Radakin, the Chief of the Defence Staff, warning of threats to transatlantic undersea fibre-optic cables approaching the British Isles. Russian submarines and intelligence ships are known to have been very active in the eastern Atlantic.
Ireland has also been targeted by Russian, Iranian and Chinese spies in recent years as an easy way of undermining European security, according to the report ‘Closing The Back Door: Rediscovering Northern Ireland’s Role in British National Security’.
Three quarters of the most critical Atlantic cables are thought to pass through or close to Ireland’s borders and the Republic hosts a third of Europe’s data companies.
Unless addressed, this could allow cyber hackers in hostile countries easy access into banking, transport and health systems throughout Britain.