So we never had a hard border during Troubles, eh, Arlene?
LAST Tuesday evening I was glued to the television looking at the unfolding political pantomime in Westminster. In my near quarter of a century in Leinster House I had witnessed and was part of many dramatic events but none came near the crisis happening before our eyes in London this week.
It is fascinating to see how easily the ‘mother of all parliaments’ has gone so quickly into a tailspin. British politics is facing very troubled waters over the months and maybe years ahead.
The scale of the defeat for Theresa May’s EU deal was such that, apart from the political implications for the British prime minister and her Tory party, it means that the deal on offer is ‘dead in the water’.
Our Government spokespersons were on message ‘regretting’ the Westminster vote and advising the need for cool heads. Yet they must know that the deal now represents the ‘high water mark’ as far as Ireland’s interests in this sorry affair are concerned. There is no chance this or any future British government will be able to get this deal or anything like it passed through the House of Commons.
Equally, given the resounding defeat of the EU’s compromise with Mrs May’s government, you can take it that until the British system gives a clear indication of how they want to proceed, the remaining 27 member states in the EU will be in no mood to budge from their stated position.
So, because of this week’s events, the only way forward is for the British to indicate their preferred option. Only then can the rest of the EU respond to their wishes. But no matter what they come up with the EU, as has been said repeatedly, will be unlikely to relent on their stated position that the UK cannot exit on similar or better terms than they already have under their existing membership.
NEITHER is it likely that EU will agree to something which will diminish an existing member state’s interests in order to placate the British, though this cannot be taken for granted.
In order to ensure our national position is protected our Government will have to intensify its diplomatic operations in case there is any weakening of the solidarity that to date our European colleagues have shown to us. For instance there have been some worrying soundings coming from the Germans even before this week’s events!
In my opinion the best way forward is that a limited extension of time to the March 29 deadline be granted in order to allow the British political system to decide for itself what is their preferred status after Brexit.
The EU should make it a condition for the granting of such an extension that Mrs May and British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn give their prior agreement they will hold indicative votes in parliament on the various options and that they will abide with the result. If the latter cannot be agreed then another stance which the EU should consider would be to grant a longer extension on the understanding a second referendum or better still a preferendum be held to ask the British public to indicate to the politicians what is their preferred option.
With a bit of thinking ‘outside the box’ the political system in the UK could justify holding such a preferendum because of the need to go back to the people for further direction.
The first referendum was nonspecific, leading to unrealistic socalled ‘red lines’ and political stagnation. I find it somewhat ironic hearing leading political figures in the UK ruling out a second referendum because, they say, it would bring their political system ‘into disrepute’. As if the current crop of politicians in Westminster are not already regarded as a laughing stock! The longer they delay in finding a compromise the more likely public opinion will become further polarised. They need to be conscious of the possible breakdown in social order.
The delusion which permeates political discourse in Westminster doesn’t end there. I listened with incredulity to Arlene Foster, the DUP leader, stating: ‘We never had a hard border even during the Troubles’. Tell this to the hundreds of thousands of people who for years were discommoded on a daily basis while travelling across the border.
Leaving aside the fact that people had to go through massive military checkpoints on the main routes across the border, there was huge disruption from a customs point of view to anyone doing cross-border business, before the implementation of the Single European Market in 1993.
As I’ve said here on many occasions before, as a border TD I witnessed massive queues backing up for miles either side of the border on the Dublin/Belfast road.
The DUPs Sammy Wilson compounded Mrs Foster’s inaccurate remarks by blaming checkpoints on terrorist violence. But there were customs checkpoints present on the border long before the troubles started in 1969/70.
These inaccurate statements don’t fool even their own supporters. Indeed there is a video doing the rounds on social media, comparing what Mrs Foster said a few years ago with what she said this week about the presence or not of a hard border.
Previously she said: ‘The hard border that was there in the 70s and 80s in Northern Ireland was there for a completely different reason than for Customs and Excise.’ How can she reconcile that statement with what she said this week that ‘we never had a hard border in Northern Ireland’.
On the face of it, the DUP’s ‘place in the sun’ looks as if it will continue for the time being. The successful vote for Mrs May in the confidence motion confirmed she and her Government are still very much in the pocket of the DUP. If they had voted the other way she would have been defeated. Is it any wonder that Nigel Dodds was ‘grinning like a Cheshire cat’ immediately after the vote.
MEMBERS of the Irish Government could equally be criticised for not being ‘up front’ with the public. Their statements regarding the possibility of checkpoints along the border in the event of the UK crashing out the EU with no deal may come back to haunt them. Leo Varadkar continues to maintain that the government apparatus is not making any arrangements in this regard.
On Thursday we were greeted with the news that the motor insurance industry was making plans for ‘green cards’ for proof of insurance cover on cross-border travel. Indeed I remember, in the bad old days before the Single Market, having to get a certificate from the Revenue Commissioners for a car trailer if I brought it across the border and back.
I would have thought a judicious government would be making tentative preparations at least in the background in this regard. We got a flavour of their mindset with the publicising of a private conversation caught on tape between ministers Simon Coveney and Shane Ross this week. Mr Coveney indicated checks would be introduced in a no-deal situation ‘but we can’t get into where they’ll be at this stage.’ He cautioned Ross against saying too much publicly as ‘all of a sudden we will be the Government that reintroduced a physical border on the island of Ireland’.
The general public both here and in the UK are demanding clarity but this week’s events have merely made the future even more uncertain. The scale of Mrs May’s defeat on the Withdrawal Agreement deal on Tuesday at least makes it clear that as the Taoiseach put it on Wednesday the ‘ball is in the UK’s court’ to tell the EU what it wants.
Equally her win in the no-confidence vote on Wednesday was followed by something of an olive branch from her when she stated she would meet the leaders of the other political groups immediately to plot a way forward.
The UK’s political system for the last two years has behaved like a spoiled child in that it can’t make up its mind what it wants.
Maybe if anything good is to come out of this week’s debacle in Westminster then it might be that they will show a bit more leadership to the people who put them there while the rest of the world looks on in horror.
But, don’t hold your breath!