Priti Patel’s appalling comment about using food shortages to pressurise Ireland in the Brexit negotiations showed a breathtaking ignorance of history. However, while the boorishness of her remark is in a category of its own, misunderstanding Ireland has become a common feature of public discourse in the UK.
“Backstop” was listed by the Collins Dictionary recently as one of the new or notable words of 2018. It defines “backstop” as a system that will come into effect if no other arrangement is made. The concept became so current in the context of solving the Brexit Northern Ireland conundrum that negotiators came to talk comfortably about a “backstop to the backstop”. However, there are deeper challenges to mutual understanding than being able to agree on the meaning of a word. The two years since the Brexit referendum have witnessed a startling decline in the capacity of many in London to understand Ireland.
I can testify from four decades of working with British colleagues on EU issues, that our shared membership of the EU developed a deep mutual understanding between us. We found that we could agree on many issues; but also importantly that, when our views differed, we could understand each other exceptionally well. Each grasped where the other was coming from. Each understood the other’s way of doing business. We realised that we shared a language not just linguistically but metaphorically.
It is therefore worrying that, in the emotional turmoil of Brexit, a large swathe of opinion in London, although of course by no means everyone, has come to misunderstand seven major aspects of Ireland: our motivation, allegiance, influence, intelligence, resolve, politics and friendship.
First of all, there is the important question of Ireland’s motivation in seeking a backstop for Northern Ireland. Some in London have asserted that the Irish government is manipulating Brexit to advance the cause of Irish unity. This is utter nonsense. The Good Friday agreement recognises the equal validity of unionist and nationalist aspirations; and many in Ireland would like one day to see a united Ireland by consent. However, the overwhelming majority believe that the focus for the foreseeable future should be on respecting both unionist and nationalist identities in Northern Ireland and on allowing the power-sharing arrangements there to take hold again and evolve. The only candidate in the recent Irish presidential election who sought to make Irish unity a significant issue received 6% of the vote. The irony is that it is only a hard border in Ireland, as opposed to Irish government policy, that could force the issue of Irish unity up the agenda.
Ireland’s allegiance to the EU likewise seems to have come as a surprise to some in London. However, it is logical and inevitable. Ireland hopes for the closest of relationships with the UK into the future but we will be part of the European Union and not part of the United Kingdom.
Perhaps the misunderstanding that has proved most upsetting to the Brexiteers has been their recent discovery of Ireland’s influence. They should have understood that for the first time in history Ireland, with the inevitable strong support of our 26 EU partners, would no longer have the weaker diplomatic hand. They should have anticipated that the power relationship of the past would no longer apply.
Then there is the misunderstanding of Ireland’s intelligence – not a new phenomenon of course, but one that had seemed to be a thing of the past. There have been breezy comments about simple technological solutions to the border issue, whimsical suggestions that this could all be sorted out later, and at one point a waggish suggestion that, if it’s alright with you lads, the backstop will be time-limited. To be fair, Dublin has had the advantage of being able to focus on the complex issues rather than on dealing with friendly fire.
Many in London also fundamentally misread Ireland’s resolve. They believed that the Irish government was grandstanding and would eventually cave in. That particular penny has now dropped.
The depth of ignorance about Irish politics, including from some Conservative MPs, has truly made us laugh rather than cry. One thinks, to cite just one example, of the suggestion that Taoiseach Leo Varadkar was doing Sinn Fein’s bidding. More significantly, there has been a serious underestimation of the depth of public support in Ireland for the Irish government’s policy.
Most importantly of all, many in London have significant misconceptions about Ireland’s friendship for Britain and for its people. The mutual affection and respect which characterised Queen Elizabeth’s state visit to Ireland in 2011 are now deeply rooted in Irish minds and hearts. They will not be dislodged by the aggression and condescension that has characterised some of the recent comment from London. Not even by Patel. The affection and respect between our peoples will transcend Brexit, if it happens. But equally our friendship with Britain today is one of equals and will not deflect us, as committed and confident members of the European Union, from pursuing our interests, none of which is greater than maintaining the status quo of the Good Friday agreement insofar as that is possible in the circumstances created by Brexit.
In fact, Collins Dictionary’s “chosen word” for 2018, among the many new coinages, was “single-use”. It might be useful for MPs to look up that word too as they reflect on the Northern Ireland backstop. They should take some reassurance from the definition of “single-use”; that is “designed to be used and then disposed of or destroyed”. But then they should also look up the words “unless” and “until”.