Ireland and Brexit

[calimac]

I've been thinking about the dilemma of what to do about Northern Ireland under the Brexit regime, and how that turned out.

This was the surprise dilemma of Brexit. Nobody discussed it during the referendum campaign. But it became a huge problem during negotiations, because there were only three solutions, none of them at all acceptable.

If the UK was going to free itself from EU goods regulations, there would have to be a customs regime between Great Britain and the Continent, everybody accepted that. (Though in practice it turns out that many of them don't like it very much.) But what about Northern Ireland, which is on the island of Ireland but part of the UK? The three solutions were:

1. Re-establish a hard border, a customs regime, along the land border between NI and the Republic of Ireland. This would be a direct violation of the Good Friday Agreement which brought something resembling peace to the island after thirty years of Troubles, it would exacerbate tensions among the communities, it would impede travel and trade, it would encourage smuggling, and bring back the bad old days that its elimination got rid of. So that's out.

2. Keep NI in the EU regime while Great Britain leaves it. This would be equivalent to erecting a customs regime down the Irish Sea. This would violate the Ulster unionist proviso that NI is an integral part of the UK and tend to weaken its links, with its possible eventual separation. Which some would want, but the unionists are wholly against. So that's out.

3. Eliminate the necessity for a customs regime by keeping the UK under EU goods regulations. But that would delete the whole point of having Brexit in the first place, which they'd just voted for. So that's out.

Throughout the negotiations, the UK kept trying to fudge the question, but eventually when it came down to it, they picked option #2, the border down the Irish Sea. And I think I can see why they did that: because it offended the fewest people. Option 1 would offend everybody on the island of Ireland, both sides of the border. Option 3 would offend everybody in Great Britain who voted for Brexit. But option 2 only really offends the DUP, the extreme Ulster unionist party, and they can lump it.

Incidentally, it seems to me that if the unionists are so eager to be an integral part of the UK, they could start by joining the UK polity and having the same political parties the rest of the UK does. True, Scotland has the Scottish Nationalists, but as its name states, that's the people who want to leave the UK. Scots who want to stay have a choice of the same parties that the rest of the country does. But they hardly exist in NI: instead there's this confusing and oft-changing welter of unionist and semi-unionist groups with no relation to anybody else.

Comments

[ranunculus]

Thank you for this post, I knew there were deeply troubling questions about Ireland and Brexit but had no idea of what was actually done, or even the choices they were choosing between. Very interesting.

[(Anonymous)]

Well, at one point during a spat with the UK during the negotiations, Von der Leyen had an episode and - without informing the Irish government or the people of the nation - triggered Article 16 thus implementing a hard border here on the island .
The seriousness of this act is not made less by the short duration of her diktat, or her avowed "deep regrets".
It lifts a lid on the nature of real interests at play (and undermines the whole telling of this story and the creditability of many of the tellers).

The fact is - and I say this as an Irishman in the Republic - that the allegations that the EU were using the Northern Irish issue against Britain are entirely true, and done with the tacit cooperation of senior elements in our government.
This is not to say that the British government were acting at all times with good faith, they assuredly were not; but at no point did they directly sabotage the achievement of the Good Friday Agreement in removing the border on our island as the EU did.
And this most serious act has practically gone under the radar in an incredible manner. Imagine the outcry had Boris similarly sealed off the six counties. The European Union in many respects is as much an imperial project as the British ever was.

Though we are living in times of information saturation, I cannot think of any time in the last thirty or more years where there has been such general complicity to occlude truths.

[calimac]

Sure the British never attempting anything dramatic in the negotiations. Their whole strategy was to fudge the whole issue and avoid making the necessary hard choices. Even now they're trying to pretend that the final choice of a hard border down the Irish Sea doesn't really mean that.

As for the EU, of course it's a bureaucracy that looks after its own interests rather than those of what is one of the smaller and more peripheral polities within the community. But I tend towards the view that von der Leyen didn't realize the full implications of what she'd done, as demonstrated by her appalled reaction after she did it.

The notion that a person's or entity's behavior under extreme stress reveals their real intent where all else is pretense is the philosophy of Xiang Yu, the "psychotic dictator" referred to in an episode of Firefly. (I have no idea what the real Xiang Yu was like.) I'd prefer to leave that kind of analysis to psychotic dictators.

[(Anonymous)]

Von der Leyen unilaterally created a hard border on the island of Ireland - which consists of one sovereign nation in truce over those territories held by it neighbour which form the Northern part of the island.
Every day, people freely travel to school & places of work, commute across and shop freely across that line, in increasing friendliness and partnership with the people on its other 'side'. I lived right by it for quite a while.
All this could easily have ended had Von der Leyen not have her actions halted.
I, respectfully, think you don't have a grasp on the issue.
No politician is oblivious to the facts of the matters of nationhood, sovereignty and territories. The fact that she afterwards made an act of contrition - something quite alien to her personality as a whole - shows the seriousness of the act. It was no mere beaureaucratic miss-step. I know nothing of Xiang Yu, but this is our home and island and we are very well aware that the European project has long since ceased to be a beaurocratic cooperative but has eclipsed the democratic mandate of governance.
(Nor do I believe there is anything suspect about the belief that you can determine the nature of someone's intentions to a greater degree by their actions than by their words - it's commonly held, and not the oblique preserve of 'psychotic dictators').
There is no exact parallel I can draw without elaborating an alternate history or set of circumstances for your country, but imagine, if you will, a third house of government to which the United States had assented, formed of a self-electing commission existing outside its borders, whose president one day unilaterally severed one portion of her (the US's) land from the rest *.
It's no minor slip-up, but is evidential of what you rightly identify as the EU putting its own interests above those of a 'peripheral polity'. Much more than this, though, is it evidence that Von der Leyen believed she had the right to act in this way - ignoring Irish sovereignty, its people & government, and the achievements of the people's of Ireland, Northern Ireland and Britain with respect to the G.F. Agreement.

(* isn't there an old, resolved, territorial dispute of some kind with Canada ? Whether or no, it's too hard to use it in any convincing fiction with Canada as an aggressive power)

[calimac]

I know what von der Leyden did, and why it was unacceptable. You don't have to explain that to me. I discussed the problems in regard to option 1, which this was, in the original post.

I also know how appalled everyone, including the author, was immediately afterwards. The fact that she made an act of contrition shows not just that this was serious, but that it was a mistake. My comments about the EU bureaucracy are an explanation as to why they didn't think this through beforehand.

If it wasn't an error, what was it? A deliberate Evil Plan? If so, it was a stunningly incompetently executed one. Another rule, besides adopting the philosophy of psychotic dictators: never attribute to malevolence what can be adequately explained by stupidity.

I don't think you can dismiss that explanation on the grounds that "No politician is oblivious to the facts of the matters of nationhood, sovereignty and territories." The Good Friday Agreement and its implications cut entirely against the usual "facts of the matters of nationhood, sovereignty and territories," and it is the fact that this was achieved which makes it such a remarkable treaty.

[(Anonymous)]

'If it wasn't an error, what was it?'

An act which harmed Ireland - or would have - in an attempt to harm the UK. This whole part of the dispute was about Northern Ireland and Section 16 - how could triggering it & unforseeing its consequences be an error ? By the very individuals who crafted it ?
'Never attribute to malevolence what can be adequately explained by stupidity' is wise in other circumstances, but foolish here.

The Commission created Article 16 to threaten the UK - but it would only have hindered the people of Ulster and the Irish Republic, (while probably working to the advantage of certain hardliners Unionists). Von der Leyen triggered it - her only error was believing it could substantively harm the UK (as a whole, rather than NI). The harm it would cause border communities on both sides - and Ireland as a whole - was obvious.

Additionally, this matter was never raised in Ireland, the UK or the EU during the whole Brexit campaign but was created by the EU after the fact on the spurious notion that the UK would try to smuggle goods into the EU through the Republic. Which is of course nonsense .
The UK's position may have caused some complications for us (not really likely, though - it would have required an entire industry of customs bootleggers to get around to technology & labelling that deals with origin, which already exists intra-EU), and doubtless their government cared little whether they did, severe or otherwise. But it was only the EU that actually carried out an action that would have caused actual and serious harm to us were it allowed to proceed.

We're constantly amazed by people outside the country telling us that the UK were the aggressors with regard to this issue (is it Boris-allergy? There's plenty there to criticise, but this wasn't one of his).


The GFA doesn't 'cut against those principles' (Von der Leyen did) but operates in context of them - it required the removing of our territorial and historical claim to the six counties (the only contentious part of it for us - It was a sacrifice for a greater good, with a promise of enhanced rights & respect for any future evolving democratic situation).

[calimac]

Your argument seems to me only to add to the evidence that it was a giant mistake - and if it was, as you claim, a deliberate attempt to harm the UK, then it was really a giant mistake. And your point about the GFA also illustrates how it cut against "the usual facts." The usual facts regarding these topics have no application to the Irish situation, as your attitude splendidly demonstrates.

[andrewducker]

"Nobody discussed it during the referendum campaign"

I saw a fair amount of discussion of it. The BBC has a small round up here, but I saw a lot of other stuff too: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-politics-49988057

The UK currently seems to be taking the approach "Well, we don't *really* have to do all that stuff we signed up to, do we?". I guess we'll see where that leads to.

Labour have a policy of not standing in Northern Ireland. The Conservatives do. They got 0.7% of the vote in the last election: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Ireland_Conservatives

[calimac]

The article you link to seems to reinforce my point: the issue was known, but hardly discussed during the referendum campaign.

I'm placing the onus not on the UK parties for not running in NI, but on the NI unionist politicians and electorate for not finding a way to belong to this country that they're so eager to remain a part of.