Apparently the Irish Taoiseach wants the UK to
remain in the EU. He is trying to keep the door open to the European Union and
if that door fails, then he wants Britain to at least remain in the European
Single Market and Customs Union. The Republic of Ireland is also concerned
about the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic and it wishes to
maintain the passport free Common Travel Area that allows citizens of the
Republic to travel anywhere within the British Isles without even showing a
passport. But if that proves impossible the Republic would prefer border checks
to take place at the sea crossings between Britain and Ireland. Above all the
Republic is concerned about its trade. The British buy a lot of goods and
services from the Republic and these goods when transported to the European
mainland make their way through Britain. To summarise Brexit is going rather
badly for the Republic of Ireland.
The Pro EU establishment across the world went full
blast with their scare stories in 2016, but the British didn’t listen. We’ve
been through tough times before and generally we can take it. We are usually
willing to fight for a principle. We don’t care to be controlled by foreign
powers. This after all is what we were fighting for both in 1914 and 1939. Maintaining
the sovereignty of the UK and other European nation states has been at the core
of Britain’s foreign policy for centuries. It is the reason why we are willing
to go through tough times. We do so because it is worth it. But fortunately it
looks as if we are not going to go through particularly tough times. A year
later and the UK economy is doing just fine. Despite an epic Remoan rear-guard
action Britain is going to leave the EU and we are going to leave completely. To
achieve this goal we actually don’t have to do a thing. We just have to wait
and in early 2019 we will have left.
It would be very nice to have a deal with the EU.
The deal could go something like this. The UK will become a country like nearly
every other country in the world that trades more or less freely without giving
up one little bit of our sovereignty. Australia, for instance, does not need to
be ruled by Jakarta in order to trade with the rest of Australasia. It does not
require the Australasian Court or the Australasian Commission to tell it what
to do. No-one in Australia would consider such a requirement to be worth it. They
would say stuff your trade if you want to tell us what to do. We can buy from
someone else. So the EU can allow us to trade more or less freely or we can buy
from someone else. That is their choice. Whatever happens we will be fine. We
may need to adjust. We may have to buy Anchor butter rather than Kerrygold.
But here’s the deal. We can get on quite well without buying Irish butter or
German cars. We can get our butter and cars from somewhere else. We could even
make our own.
The Republic of Ireland unfortunately is in a rather
different position. Much of their trade is with the UK. If the EU imposes
delays and tariffs on trade between the UK and the EU it is going to make it
rather difficult for Dublin to send its milk and butter to the EU. It could
either send it on a slow boat round Britain or it could find its lorries held
up both at Holyhead and Dover. If British tourists have to spend hours waiting
in line to show their passport at the EU border, then Republic of Irish
citizens might equally find it somewhat harder to nip across the border to fill
up with petrol in Northern Ireland. Cooperation cuts both ways. Of course it
need not be that way, but EU attempts to punish Britain for Brexit are liable
to end up punishing the EU. If Canada can trade freely with the EU while
remaining a sovereign nation state, then so too can Britain. You either help
that to happen or you don’t. I understand that the whole EU project is held
together by fear and dependence. You need to try to discourage others from
leaving. But we will adjust no matter what you do. We are not scared and
neither are we dependent on EU money. The EU gets more from Britain than we get
back both in terms of trade and in terms of subsidy. It is this that
fundamentally meant membership was a bad deal for us. Losing the UK might be
bad for the EU, but it is not bad for Britain. That is indeed why we are
leaving.
The fundamental problem for the Republic of Ireland
is that since it left the UK it has maintained a fundamentally domestic
relationship with the UK while being independent. The UK’s response to the
Republic leaving the UK has been to allow it to maintain its close ties with
us. For this reason we have always allowed Republic of Ireland citizens to live
and work in the UK. We have maintained an open border between Northern Ireland
and the Republic apart from those times when security concerns prevented us
from doing so. We have continued to buy Republic of Ireland goods and services
as if they were domestic goods and services.
There has been very little animosity from the
British side. If the Republic of Ireland plays football, many people in Britain
support them as if they were one of our own home nations. Many British people,
including me, have Irish ancestry. We don’t think of Dublin in the same way as
we think of Paris. Both are capitals of independent nation states, but one
seems rather more foreign than the other. I think it is because of the
closeness that British people feel towards the Republic of Ireland that we buy
so many Irish goods and services. Someone from London buys goods from Dublin
with the same sense of buying something from home as he would if he bought them
from Edinburgh, Cardiff or Belfast. We don’t think of Guinness as being from
abroad.
But this feeling is not altogether reciprocated. I
have never met someone from the Irish Republic who hasn’t had a chip on their
shoulder about the Brits. At some point, usually fairly quickly, I am reminded
about Cromwell or famine or some other awful thing that we have done. There is
a fundamental hostility that Britain gets from the Republic in return for
treating them like cousins. We may get on for the most part, but the limit is
that our supposed friends can’t quite bear that they speak the same language as
we do, feel guilty that they failed to resurrect their own ancient language and
blame us for absolutely everything that has ever happened and ever will happen.
The Republic of Ireland wishes to maintain a
domestic relationship with the UK, while being independent. This is the
contradiction in their whole being ever since 1916. In one of our darkest hours
a few weeks before the slaughter on the Somme, we met with treachery in Dublin
and punished it accordingly in the same way that any other European country
would have acted while at war. But few indeed are the Brits who hold it against
them. Few indeed are the Brits who go on and on about it.
The Republic achieved its independence by means of
terrorism (the IRA), but it never accepted that the people of Northern Ireland
had the right to choose their own destiny. If Ireland had the right to secede
from the UK, why on earth does Northern Ireland not have the right to choose to
stay? But the Republic has never really accepted the right of the Northern
Irish people to choose not to be a part of the Republic. For this reason more
or less the same Irish nationalism that led to independence and the same Irish
terrorism (the IRA) tried for decades to force Northern Ireland to submit. But
we didn’t submit.
The response of the Republic since 1916 has more or
less been hostility. While we have maintained open borders and treated the
Republic as part of the family, they have responded with bombs or tacit support
for those bombs. The aim of the Republic has always been the same as that of
the IRA, only the means have differed. Now they want to use Brexit to bring
those aims closer.
The aims of
the Irish Republic have always been to annex part of the territory of the United
Kingdom, i.e. Northern Ireland. This is the equivalent of Germany having the
aim of taking back parts of Poland. The Poles would rightly consider this to be
a fundamentally hostile foreign policy. Likewise if Mexico wanted to take back
California and New Mexico, the United States would not treat Mexico as a
friendly neighbour. Luckily for the Republic of Ireland we have looked upon its
aims more tolerantly. We haven’t let them spoil how we look upon the cousins.
We are used to their enmity and indulge it. But there are limits you know.
There is an international border between Northern
Ireland and the Republic. Sorry folks, but you put it there. It followed from your choice to leave. You
didn’t have to leave. The only real difference between Ireland and Britain is
Catholicism and you have more or less given up on that now. Why else would you vote
in a referendum to go against the teachings of the Church? Despite your use of unpronounceable,
unspellable words like "Taoiseach" and your rather perverse inability to pronounce "th" you all speak English just like we do . We have
a shared history that goes back to the Norman Conquest and beyond. It is for
this reason, as well as geography, that you trade more with us than you do with
Slovakia.
The Republic of Ireland had a right to choose
independence. They fought for it and they won. But they have never properly
followed through the logic of this position. Now unfortunately they are forced
to do so. Long term it's looking more and more like a strategic mistake. For nearly one hundred years the UK and the Republic have been able
to maintain something like a domestic relationship while being separate nation
states. This is no longer going to be possible. But this is simply a
consequence of the Irish decision one hundred years ago. If the Irish Taoiseach
wants to keep the door open to the EU, the UK might as well respond by saying
we keep the door open to your coming back to the UK. That now is the only way
that the Republic of Ireland can maintain its domestic relationship with
Britain.
The Republic of Ireland is going to end up in a
different trading bloc to its largest trade partner and closest neighbour. The
border between Northern Ireland and the Republic is going to be the border
between the EU and the non-EU. Dublin must finally accept that this border does
not go through the Irish Sea. We will do all we can to make the border between
Northern Ireland and the Republic as open as possible. But this is where the
border is.
The only way now for the Republic of Ireland to
maintain its domestic relationship with the UK is for the Republic to leave the
EU. Britain would no doubt be willing to help. If the Republic left the EU,
there would be no problem maintaining the Common Travel Area and we could
create our own trade bloc as we more or less did from Irish independence to our
both joining the EU.
I don’t think the Republic will do this however. The
logic of the Republic leaving the EU and aligning itself once more with Britain
is “ever closer union” between Britain and Ireland. In this way also Ireland
could cease to be partitioned. But the Irish chip on its shoulder will prevent
this. It makes a lot more sense to form one nation out of Britain and Ireland
than it does to form one nation out of the EU. But Irish hatred of the Brits is
more powerful than sense. Your choice folks.
Brexit will be a disaster for the Republic of
Ireland. That is a shame, but it is a consequence of their decision all those
years ago to leave the UK. Now the Republic will be properly independent. It
will remain part of an ever closer EU and its relationship with the UK
including Northern Ireland will diverge.
Irish nationalism always involved a contradiction.
They wanted to be independent, but they also wanted to maintain a relationship
with the UK as if they were not independent. They want the same thing now. But
sorry dear Republic of Ireland, you are an independent nation state. Brexit is
not your business. Despite the Good Friday Agreement/Anglo Irish Agreement etc etc (all concessions to essentially the same Irish Republican terrorism that gave rise to the Republic in the first place) Northern Ireland is fundamentally not your business either. It is part of another sovereign nation state. If there is to be a full
international border it is a consequence of both the UK and the Republic of
Ireland being what they are.
The same contradiction that is involved in Irish
nationalism is, of course, to be found in Scottish nationalism. The SNP want
Scotland to be independent, but to maintain a domestic relationship with the
other parts of the UK. They want to keep the pound, open borders, a social
union, and everything else they like about being a part of the UK. But this is
to want to have both a domestic and an international relationship. They want
therefore both an international and a non-international relationship, i.e. they
want a contradiction.
Scotland even more than the Republic of Ireland has
far greater domestic trade with the other parts of the UK than with any
external market. But a domestic trade relationship (the UK’s internal market)
can only be maintained by remaining a part of the UK. The clue is in the word "internal". Brexit makes this logic clear. The internal cannot be the same as the
external.
The Republic of Ireland after nearly one hundred
years is going to get itself in effect kicked out of the UK’s internal market. This
is something that it really should be scared off. Likewise if Scotland chose
independence it too would find itself in a different trading bloc to its
largest trade partner. There would be a real international border between
Berwick and Gretna and that border would have consequences. But again becoming
independent logically involves creating an international border. It involves losing
a domestic relationship and an internal market and having it replaced by an
international relationship and an external market. Scottish nationalism has
tried to hide the logic of its position, but Brexit is exposing the fact that
the SNP has no intellectual foundation. They haven’t thought it through. I have
yet to come across any Scottish nationalist who strikes me as really able. All
I meet is cliché, unoriginal left-wing dogma and abuse. It’s either nice, but
very average or nasty and rather dim. Brexit has exposed the lack of intellect
and when a house is built without a foundation it tends to sink. This is what
is happening to the SNP now.
A full and clean Brexit whereby we leave both the
Customs Union and the EU’s Single Market will very ably demonstrate to the
Irish Republic that its choice to become an independent nation state has
consequences. These have been hidden. But they are now going to become clear.
It is for this reason that the Irish Taoiseach is so angry about it. But I
would suggest that he cease meddling in the affairs of another sovereign nation
state. We made our decision. Unlike in the Republic of Ireland we respect the
democratic will of the British people. We don’t ignore the result of our
elections and we don’t take kindly to being asked to vote again until we get
the right answer. We are not in thrall
to the EU as you are. We prefer freedom to their money, which anyway we don’t
need and never really received.
The Republic of Ireland revolted in 1916 and chose
independence only to find itself ruled by the Troika of the International
Monetary Fund, European Central Bank and European Commission. It sold its
sovereignty for a mess of Euros and gave up its independence gradually for the
sake of money from the European Union. Now the Republic of Ireland will
gradually merge with this United States of Europe and it will have as much
independence and sovereignty as Texas, or New South Wales. Meanwhile Britain
will re-join the club of sovereign nation states like Canada, Australia, Japan
and the USA. Poor Dublin trapped by its history and by its hatred of the wicked
Brits will look on and fume.
Hatred of the English almost meant that Scotland
joined this fuming. But despite Nicola Sturgeon’s fury, most Scots have moved
beyond our history. Only a minority here want to blame the English for
everything and refight old battles. Brexit means that the SNP dream has
died. What happens to the Republic of
Ireland in the next few years will prevent Scotland even considering following
the same path. Why would you?
