Renewed optimism on securing Brexit deal
MAY AND EU LEADERS WORKING HARD TO OVERCOME HURDLES
British Prime Minister Theresa May and other EU leaders voiced renewed confidence yesterday that they could secure a Brexit deal, saying they were working hard to overcome the very same hurdles that only days ago brought the talks to a halt.
Less than six months before Britain quits the EU in its biggest shift in policy for more than 40 years, the two sides are at odds over how to deal with their only land border, between the British province of Northern Ireland and Ireland.
The problem centres on a socalled backstop — an insurance policy to ensure there will be no return to a hard border on the island of Ireland, a former focal point for sectarian tensions, if a future trading relationship is not in place in time.
To try to unlock the talks, May had earlier signalled she would consider extending a socalled transition period “for a matter of months” after Britain leaves the EU in March, a move her critics called a betrayal but one which the bloc welcomed.
Extending the transition period could mean that if a future partnership is not ready, a backstop, which so far has been unpalatable to the British side, would not have to be triggered.
But even an extension would not get rid of the EU’s insistence that such a backstop must be agreed to secure a deal. For now, both sides seemed to be happy to kick any solution to that problem a little bit further down the road.
“We are all working, we’re intensifying the work on these issues that remain,” May told a news conference after a twoday summit in Brussels had ended. “What I’ve had from leaders around the table ... since I arrived here in Brussels yesterday is a very real sense that people want that deal to be done. I am confident that we can achieve that good deal.” EU leaders also voiced a new optimism after the last summit in the Austrian city of Salzburg ended in acrimony, with May irritated that the EU had criticised her plans in a particularly damaging way.
What I’ve had from leaders around the table ... since I arrived here in Brussels yesterday is a very real sense that people want that deal to be done. I am confident that we can achieve that good deal.”
Theresa May | British Prime Minister
With time running out, the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland remains the intractable hurdle for negotiators. Brussels is determined that the border remains open.
British Prime Minister Theresa May has suggested that the United Kingdom may seek more time to smooth the transition period after her nation leaves the European Union on March 29 – should her government indeed reach any deal with Brussels in the next six weeks.
But the prospect of reaching a deal is not yet sure, with both the EU and the London government far apart. Meeting in Brussels with the EU on Wednesday night, May had little to offer the increasingly sceptical Europeans other than to suggest the time from when the UK formally leaves the EU on March 29, and the December 31 2020 date for the end of the transition period might be extended for some months.
But even that creates more political difficulties for May who has little room to manoeuvre politically. Her Conservative party is deeply split between hard-line Brexiteers who want the UK out of Europe as quickly as possible, and Remainers, who are seeking closest possible relationship between London and the EU after the split.
Complicating matters for May is that she relies on 10 MPs from the Democratic Unionist Party of Northern Ireland, who are vehemently opposed to any Brexit agreement that might weaken the province’s relationship with the rest of the UK.
With time running out, the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland remains the intractable hurdle for negotiators. Brussels is determined that the border remains open, free of customs and security checks and honouring the terms of the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 that brought three decades of political and sectarian violence to an end.
There is but one word that matters in the political vocabulary of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) of Northern Ireland. No. It is the word that defines its being, its philosophy, its outlook on life, its thinking. No compromise. No leeway. No surrender. No. This is the party that has 10 Members of Parliament at Westminster.
Because of Prime Minister Theresa May’s pigheaded arrogance in believing that only she could bring about a Brexit agreement, she decided to call a general election in June 2017, even though there was no need and her Conservative party had a comfortable overall majority.
Because of that, the DUP is now propping up her Conservative party government in a confidence and supply arrangement. A £1 billion (Dh4.84 billion) financial inducement to Northern Ireland’s public coffers also helped. But now the true price of her Faustian deal with the DUP is clear.
No special treatment for Northern Ireland.
No customs checks on goods leaving the island of Ireland at ports on the mainland of Britain. No border down the Irish Sea. No compromise. No leeway. No surrender. No.
It’s not as if Prime Minister May didn’t have plenty of warning of the obdurate nature of the DUP and its single-word agenda. The fact is she was given an early example of its single-mindedness just five months into the confidence and supply arrangement, when it looked in December as if the Brexit talks would collapse without even having reached those first-phase goals.
The DUP said no to keeping the north aligned with the south on customs arrangements, and instead committed the whole UK to maintaining “regulatory alignment” with the EU.
As unionists, the DUP believe that Northern Ireland is an intrinsic part of the UK, that it is equal in every way, and its sole raison d’etre is to maintain that union.
And there is a majority too who believe — and voted — for Northern Ireland to remain in the European Union. No, the DUP said then, it shouldn’t, and they were loud supporters of Brexit.
The fact is that at every occasion since the very day it was founded by the Reverend Ian Paisley in 1971, the DUP has opposed any and every move that might bring about a united Ireland — or even efforts that might have brought peace to a province ripped asunder by three decades of political and sectarian violence.
That violence evolved from a civil rights movement 50 years ago this month, because the Unionist majority that ruled Northern Ireland said no to giving equal rights to the nationalist and Roman Catholic minority who wanted equal access to housing, jobs and opportunities.
Then there was the 1985 Anglo-Irish Treaty, which was signed between then PM Margaret Thatcher and Taoiseach Garrett FitzGerald of Ireland.
No, the DUP said. The violence continued.
And then there was the Good Friday Agreement, signed in April, 1985. It called for an elected assembly, a power-sharing executive, cross-border cooperation and decommissioning of all weapons of the dark forces of terrorism and those paramilitary thugs on both sides of the community divide. No, the DUP said. The violence did continue for a while, but peace was allowed to take root.
Over the past two decades, that physical border has been removed, and driving between north and south is no different than driving from Abu Dhabi to Dubai. The road surface changes a little, the road signs switch to kilometres per hour and become bilingual in English and Gaelic. That’s it.
And still the DUP says no.