Behind the Sausage Wars hides an agenda for united Ireland
We have come to know it by the glib shorthand of Sausage Wars, but behind the threeway trade row over Northern Ireland lies a far more subtle but profound battle that threatens the very future of the United Kingdom.
While the headlines have centred on chilled meats, empty shelves and parcel deliveries, unionists believe the true reason for the Republic of Ireland’s recent belligerence is a not-so-hidden agenda for reunification.
There has been increasing talk south of the border of an “all-island economy”, viewed by many in the north as code for a united Ireland.
Meanwhile, Brussels’ foot-dragging over a permanent fix to the vexatious Northern Ireland Protocol – which governs trade to the north from Britain and the EU – is motivated, some believe, by a desire to see Britain punished for Brexit. See what happens if you leave the EU? You lose part of your country!
The EU has a powerful ally in Joe “I’m Irish” Biden, who dropped heavy hints to Boris Johnson on his visit to Washington DC this week that if he rips up the Protocol he can forget about a free trade deal with the US.
Earlier this month, tensions in Northern Ireland came close to breaking point when Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, the DUP leader, threatened to collapse the Stormont executive before November if the Protocol is not rewritten.
He also announced his party’s immediate withdrawal from crossborder institutions established under the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.
Part of the reason for the unionists’ increasingly aggressive stance is the distinct possibility that Sinn Fein will be the largest party both in Stormont and in the Dail when the next election cycle is complete in 2025 (or even sooner if a snap election is called in Dublin), meaning a border poll could be on the cards.
Even more pressingly, a striking realignment of Northern Ireland’s trade, thanks largely to the complications of the Protocol, has already seen an increasing percentage of goods flowing north-south on the island of Ireland, rather than across the Irish Sea.
Defenders of the Union see the “all-island” economic argument as a Trojan Horse to bring about reunification, and warn that the longer the realignment continues, the harder it will be to reverse.
The Protocol, which was negotiated as part of the Brexit trade deal and came into effect at the start of this year, is a fudge designed to avoid physical checks on goods crossing the land border in Ireland and remove any need for infrastructure, such as cameras or customs posts, which would have breached the terms of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.
The EU insisted that checks must instead be carried out on goods crossing the Irish Sea (goods produced in Northern Ireland are exempt as they follow EU product standards), effectively creating an internal border in the UK and causing the delays and shortages that prompted violent protests at ports earlier this year.
Britain insists the checks and delays can be overcome by the increased use of technology, but as one source on the British side of talks said, “while we are focused on outcomes, the EU is focused on process and structures. They won’t agree to something that works if it doesn’t fit into their [political] structures”.
EU rules also ban the import of chilled meat products from nonmember countries, meaning sausages cannot be sent across the Irish Sea under the terms of the Protocol. That rule has been suspended under a grace period that was due to expire at the end of this month, and while Mr Johnson and Lord Frost, his Brexit minister, have persuaded Brussels to extend it, the concession merely postpones, rather than solves the problem of cross-border checks, and it does nothing to dispel unionists’ suspicions of what Dublin and Brussels are up to. The same source said: “They are engineering and manipulating the protocol to create the impression of an all-ireland economy.”
Maros Sefcovic, the European Commission vice-president, has called on all sides to “dial down the rhetoric” and “focus on the issues” at hand, but Downing Street agrees with the DUP that the Protocol “is simply not sustainable” in its current form.
The economic facts are these: in the first four months of 2021, imports from Northern Ireland to the Republic increased by 60 per cent and goods moving the other way increased by 40 per cent. Meanwhile, British exports to the Republic were down 20 per cent in the same period, according to Ireland’s Central Statistics Office.
Now, consider the recent statements from Ireland’s leaders. Leo Varadkar, Ireland’s deputy prime minister and leader of the Fine Gael party, said in June that reunification should be his party’s “mission” and that it could happen in his lifetime (he is 42).
He also claimed the “tectonic plates are shifting”, that there was “no majority any more in Northern Ireland either for unionism or nationalism”, and there was a “growing middleground of people who want to talk about this – young people in particular – and we want to talk to them”.
Ireland’s foreign minister – and Fine Gael’s deputy leader – Simon Coveney, who is 49, suggested a much shorter timescale, saying he would like to see a united Ireland in his “political lifetime”.
Mr Varadkar said that north-south trade “is how we can move beyond the pandemic and the effects of Brexit and develop the all-island economy more effectively together”.
Meanwhile, Micheál Martin, Ireland’s taoiseach, who is seen as being more moderate on the issue of reunification, has nevertheless insisted that his Fianna Fail party remains committed to a united Ireland.
Mr Martin wants to achieve it through a “shared dialogue” and has been irritated by calls in the US for a border poll, which have included advertisements in The Washington Post and New York Times, which tried to whip up nationalist sentiment by saying a failure to call a referendum would leave “a divided Ireland at the mercy of the British Government”.
Then there is Michael D Higgins, the Irish president and son of an IRA intelligence officer, who has said there are no “symbolic obstacles” to possible reunification but appears uncomfortable discussing the issue, saying: “A lot of work has yet to be done in creating the conditions in which you could arrive at a mature decision that could be accepted by all of those participating.”
With Stormont elections coming in May next year and Dail elections in 2025 or sooner, it may be Sinn Fein that has the greatest say in the matter if they win the most seats in both.
Sinn Fein now leads in opinion polls both north and south of the border, and has the same number of seats in the Dail as senior coalition party Fianna Fail (and more than Fine Gael), having polled the most votes in the 2020 Irish elections. It would have beaten Fianna Fail to become the biggest party in the Dail if it had fielded more candidates, and could well be in a position to form a coalition government next time out.
In Stormont, Sinn Fein has just one seat fewer than the DUP, having polled just 0.2 per cent fewer votes than the unionist party in 2017. If the current trend continues, Northern Ireland will have its first Sinn Fein first minister within months.
Michelle O’neill, the Sinn Fein vice president and current deputy first minister at Stormont, is convinced that the Protocol and its consequences have turned people against Brexit. She has said the people of Northern Ireland must decide whether they “want to be part of inward-looking Brexit Britain or outward-looking inclusive Ireland”.
But Sinn Fein’s recent popularity is built on its socialist domestic policies, not its nationalist credentials, and polls have consistently shown that the residents of the island of Ireland do not currently want to unite.
The most recent Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey, carried out annually by Queen’s University Belfast and Ulster University, found 53 per cent of voters in Northern Ireland preferring to stay in the UK, with just 30 per cent wanting reunification.
Polls in the south suggest just over half of voters would like a united Ireland, but a small majority reject the idea if it would involve paying extra tax to take on the huge subsidies the UK currently sends to the north.
And that is hugely important, because Northern Ireland’s economy relies on handouts to stay afloat.
It spends around £10 billion a year more than it generates in tax revenues, amounting to £5,440 per person. It also spends more money than any other part of the UK, at £15,910 of public expenditure per person, a figure which is growing at a faster rate than England, Scotland or Wales.
Add in the fact that Northern Ireland has a National Health Service and the Republic doesn’t (healthcare is subsidised but not free for most people), as well as the one-off costs of changing the north’s currency and tax regime, and the bill quickly rises above the £20 billion a year that those on the British side say it would cost the Republic to merge with the north – well over a fifth of the Republic’s current public spending budget.
Maintaining the fragile peace that was brokered in the Good Friday Agreement is an expensive business in a province that is still suffering from decades of under-investment during the Troubles. And there are fears that the Troubles could return if reunification moves up the political agenda. Liam Kennedy, emeritus professor of history, philosophy and politics at Queen’s University Belfast, said it was “not likely, but not unlikely either” that the Troubles could begin afresh if Sinn Fein wins power north and south of the border.
Prof Kennedy believes Mr Varadkar’s recent talk of a united Ireland may have been nothing more than an attempt to “siphon off ” floating votes from Sinn Fein, and that it may not be a “settled policy” on the part of Fine Gael. However, he said it was fair to “infer from some of the positions taken that there is still an element of punishing the UK”.
As with almost any row that involves the EU, domestic politics in member states also spill over into Eu-wide discussions. Germany goes to the polls on Sept 26, and Emmanuel Macron faces a presidential election next April, meaning there is precious little chance of Europe’s power brokers doing Britain a favour any time soon.
One source on the British side of negotiations said: “It wouldn’t surprise me if people in the EU would like to see Britain lose part of its country as the cost of Brexit, but also there are people who look at the map and say it doesn’t make sense for Ireland to be divided. They might see a united Ireland as the logical conclusion of what we have done.”
‘It wouldn’t surprise me if people in the EU would like to see Britain lose part of its country as the cost of Brexit’