Between Leo’s bullying and FF silence, it’s time to worry
Brexit has brought out the worst in its politicians. Where the country needs sacrifice, it gets selfishness, where it needs compromise it gets obduracy, where it needs vision it gets fevered dreams of past glories. We’re heading for a Brexit crash-out over the Cliffs of Dover.
Back home in Dublin, Leo Varadkar carries on like he’s a graduate of the Conor McGregor school of diplomacy. Instead of the winning smile and friendly gesture in the direction of London, tough guy Leo prefers instead to pummel and berate, accuse, reprimand and rebuke Theresa May and her Tory supporters in the House of Commons.
Leo the hard man, the tough talker and straight dealer. Greener by far than Fianna Fáil – and giving Mary Lou McDonald a good run for her money.
It’s all an ugly, mish-mash, onthe-hoof bluster designed to draw attention away from the Taoiseach’s own lack of inner political strength, from his lack of vision for the longer term.
It’s nothing but an over-compensation for an absence of both good authority and confidence. Nobody disputes that Ireland should insist on an open, frictionless border post Brexit. But coarse and vulgar diplomacy won’t win friends and influence people. And it certainly won’t ensure lasting relationships between north and south here in Ireland, or between Ireland and the UK when the dust finally settles.
Apart altogether from a shared culture, inter-mingled populations involving personal and blood relations, we need the British to help stabilise peace in the North. We need them too for sound commercial reasons. We have €65billion in trade crossing the Irish Sea each year with hundreds of thousands of jobs depending on these transactions continuing uninterrupted.
Yet, despite all this, Leo Varadkar took a gigantic misstep in Davos with talk of full metal jacket security returning to the border postBrexit. Not satisfied just to threaten the return of soldiers, guns and police operating checkpoints south of Newry, west of Derry and all points in between, the Taoiseach then proceeded to warn Theresa May she wouldn’t be able to make trade deals if a hard border was forced on Ireland.
‘It will be very difficult for the UK to conclude any trade deals with the question of the Irish border unresolved,’ he told the Daily Telegraph.
This, in effect, can fairly be interpreted as a threat to use the Irish veto on any future UK trade deal with the EU. Further, it’s seen as a warning that the Irish-American lobby in Washington would be used to scupper any trade deal the British might have in mind with Uncle Sam.
This was diplomacy without any pretence for sublety. And it’s woefully dangerous, particularly as it could poison the view among Unionist politicians that Irish America holds a largely benign and neutral position right now on Ireland.
It’s at times like this you need a proper Opposition. Unfortunately, Micheál Martin has already left the building.
The Fianna Fáil leader has made no impact at all on the Brexit debate, opting instead to be swept along in the swirl of Taoiseach Varadkar’s self-maiming, unproductive and dangerous megaphone diplomacy.
His interventions have been as half-hearted as his embrace of the SDLP in a ‘partnership’ – not a merger now mind.
Just when we need senior hurling at exhibition standard, Micheál Martin is afraid to do an Anthony Nash on it – open his shoulders and puck the sliotar like he wants to lose it.
Instead, Martin seems paralysed by a sense of political impotence and now he’s losing public support as well. Opinion polls put Fianna Fáil at just 22% support, that’s a full 10% behind Fine Gael.
Little wonder that frontline Fianna Fáilers such as Billy Kelleher and Anne Rabbitte are considering bailing out of national politics and try their luck in the European Parliament instead. They clearly see little prospect of ever taking a seat in government.
The putative Opposition lacks ambition and drive, while the Government lacks the guile for smart diplomacy.
It’s time to start worrying.