Enda was no Geldof but he can’t be blamed for Brexit
OF course, it is all crying over spilt milk, perhaps literally in case of Irish agricultural exports to Britain, which has now torn up the Common Agricultural Policy along with other EU policy deals.
But there is an acknowledged and severe adverse economic impact on Ireland in the wake of Brexit, one which erodes wealth in this country now and in the future.
The domestic political question here is whether any blame attaches to Enda Kenny and his Government for not pursuing what he had described as Ireland’s ‘vital national interest’ more vigorously – keeping Britain in the EU.
Enda chose to interfere in another country’s referendum. He did it delicately, arguably enjoying the trappings of statesman status as he tripped lightly about, while making sure not to properly frighten the horses. Bob Geldof he wasn’t.
Perhaps he didn’t interfere enough as our Government went complacently through the motions of an economic argument. We were just too posh to join Project Fear by warning about a possible return of hard borders, opportunistic terrorism, and a gradual return to the threat of trouble on both islands.
Tut, tut – irresponsible Irish scaremongering? How vulgar. But hardly too undignified to do, if indeed there really was a ‘vital national interest’ at stake for Ireland, especially when all sides over there were already actively scaremongering on an industrial scale. The British public might have thought a little bit about ominous warnings from Ireland, a friendly neighbour offering counsel in English, even if carefully veiled, since they obviously weren’t listening to their own leaders.
That counter-productive Cameron effect on the campaign is what unmistakably led to Downing Street prudently cancelling a joint appearance by the Prime Minister and the Taoiseach in Manchester last week.
Instead of realising that a duty, and an opportunity, was passing to Ireland, Mr Kenny and acolytes simply seemed mournfully disappointed that the Taoiseach had been robbed of a prestigious photo opportunity.
After that, followed swiftly by the appalling Jo Cox murder, it was as if the last puffs of air went out of the already puny Irish effort to help fill the sails of the Remain argument. It may simply have looked unseemly to roll up our sleeves.
Although, Enda Kenny did not have any sleeves to roll up when wearing a pink T-shirt while casually golfing with Joe Biden on Polling Day – and he certainly didn’t issue any personal appeal to all Irish citizens in Britain or Northern Ireland in those vital hours. Casual indeed, it would seem.
Even if they had to tread carefully in Britain, Kenny could arguably have targeted his efforts at nationalists, whose turnout was weak. When the Irish Daily Mail put this to the Taoiseach yesterday, his response was that Ireland could have had ‘very little impact’ in any case.
He certainly wasn’t much ‘in it to win it’, although his overall point is valid. There were only 800,000 Irish in Britain, out of an electorate of 46 million – and most were concentrated in the storm-hit south and the transport chaos that ensued.
And the gap between Leave and Remain, in the final analysis, was greater than the entire electorate of Northern Ireland, which was 1.2 million, lots of whom – from both communities – failed to vote.
Nonetheless, Enda is left with another fine mess on his watch, having been ridiculously cosy with David Cameron in the lead-up to his own electoral disaster, remember. And he may even have his own Boris Johnson… Leo Varadkar was quick to offer a doorstep interview to the media on the British decision.
Enda summoned some gravitas yesterday to note that he had first encountered David Cameron when the latter was the leader of the Opposition. It only served to heighten the sense that Enda himself has been around far too long.
Meanwhile, he heads a minority Government that has its foot firmly down on the public spending accelerator in what is now a time of gathering economic stormclouds.
The outlook thus for Ireland and for Enda – the sometime statesman, sometime golfer – looks less than clever. This particular hole is a spectacular bogey. Just marking your card, Taoiseach.