‘We’re not using Brexit to get a united Ireland’
Varadkar moves to reassure Unionists before key talks in Brussels
THE Taoiseach flies out today to Brussels for a ‘pivotal’ summit, and will specify that he is not trying to use Brexit to achieve a United Ireland.
Leo Varadkar told the Dáil yesterday: ‘We have to bear in mind the concerns of the Unionist community in Northern Ireland and reassure them that the Irish Government has no hidden agenda.’
Meanwhile, Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney has argued that Ireland’s recent stance on Brexit talks was ‘stubborn,’ rather than ‘aggressive’ as claimed by DUP leader Arlene Foster.
He added that new guidelines for Brexit phase two negotiations make it clear that the talks ‘will not be allowed to progress unless we get assurance that the UK will follow through on the commitments it made in phase one’.
‘That should be very reassuring,’ he said, adding that his department’s monthly summaries on Brexit – sent to other parts of Government for information – had been stopped since a ‘disappointing and regrettable’ leak to RTÉ’s Europe editor Tony Connelly.
The Taoiseach told the Dáil the Brussels summit would be ‘pivotal’ as it will decide whether there has been sufficient progress on phase one. He added: ‘I am satisfied that sufficient progress has now been made.’
He summarised the commitments under the agreement, including protection for the Good Friday Agreement and Common Travel Area.
‘The United Kingdom has committed to avoiding a hard border,’ he added. ‘There will be no physical infrastructure or related checks or controls.’
The Taoiseach said there would be a distinct strand on Ireland in phase two, adding that he had been ‘very clear’ throughout discussions that Brexit is not being used as a move to a united Ireland without consent. He added: ‘Brexit undoubtedly presents challenges but, notwithstanding those challenges, we want reconciliation and respect to grow.’
With the agreement in place, it was now even more important that the Northern Ireland Executive and the North South Ministerial Council get up and running again, Mr Varadkar said.
Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin warned Ireland was now heading into the most difficult part of the negotiations. He said that Brexit ‘remains a deep and urgent threat to Ireland’ and it would be ‘an enormous error’ to believe anything is settled. There were some ‘clearly contradictory statements’ in the phase one deal, he said. ‘Ireland’s fate remains integrally bound-up in the wider negotiation.’
Mr Martin criticised the specific statement ‘entrenching the idea that Northern Ireland is no different’ from the rest of the UK. It was not only not welcome, but a reversal of over 40 years of policy and practice, he said.
Labour Party leader Brendan Howlin warned about the attitude of hard Brexiteers in the UK. ‘Plain untruths told about leaving the EU now continue to infect efforts to negotiate an exit agreement,’ he said. ‘The internal politics of the British Conservative Party could derail the prospects of a soft Brexit. That is what we saw at the weekend.’
Mr Howlin said it was deeply disappointing but not surprising to hear a number of British minister suggest the deal was ‘meaningless’ or ‘not binding,’ or had only limited application. ‘I am not so naïve as to expect British ministers to publicly endorse the Taoiseach’s interpretation of the guarantees in relation to Ireland as bulletproof,’ he said. ‘But words must mean something in international agreements.’