NEW ESSAY QUESTION for future historians of Brexit. Was the hung Parliament of 2017 the real reason why the Irish border question proved insoluble? My answer - not necessarily but it certainly ensured there was no space to have realistic debates on the East-West dimension (1/25)
I put this argument forward with a lot of caution because it is easy for words to be misinterpreted and motives questioned. Twitter is not a university tutorial room. So I will proceed carefully (2/25)
It's common currency now in the Tory Party from the Prime Minister down to say that a customs border in the Irish Sea is unacceptable. In Theresa May's words, it is something no British Prime Minister would ever agree. It would say that NI is not an integral part of the UK (3/25)
The argument rests on the assumption that Northern Ireland is exactly the same as the rest of the UK. But is not exactly the same. It is a profoundly unique case. This is not choosing a nationalist interpretation over a unionist one. It is simply choosing the facts (4/25)
From the Acts of Union 1801 until 1916-21, there was no Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. There was Ireland, bound to GB through treaty after a process of British involvement that began hundreds of years before. You can argue fiercely about the involvement (5/25)
Through the course of the 19th Century, the case for Home Rule gained a head of steam. Both the Conservative and Liberal parties tried to introduce it at separate times and it split both (6/25)
Although Tories don't like to talk about it very much given our full name, most interested in the argument would probably accept that those who opposed Home Rule in the 19th Century made a strategic mis-judgement (7/25)
As the Liberal PM Gladstone warned in 1886 - there would be a "harvest of the future" if Home Rule was not passed. And so it proved in the Easter Rising of 1916 and what has since followed (8/25)
Anyway, under the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921, it was agreed that there would be an Irish Free State and Northern Ireland, the latter remaining part of the United Kingdom (9/25)
The Conservative Party's attitude to the treaty in 1921 was complex but it was accepted. I can imagine a Tory leader in the previous century though saying "this is something no British PM would ever agree to" (10/25)
The Northern Ireland that emerged was a very unique entity. It consisted of 6 counties out of the larger historic province of Ulster to ensure protections for Unionists/Protestants as a bloody Civil War raged in the Free State (11/25)
It had its own Parliament that passed most of its own laws until 1972 when it was dissolved during the Troubles (12/25)
On the long path to peace, out of the troubles the 1985 Anglo Irish Agreement gave the Irish Government an advisory role in the affairs of Northern Ireland I can imagine a Tory leader in previous times saying"this is something no British PM would ever agree to" (13/25)
The Belfast Agreement of 1998 provided for a British-Irish Council which formalised this role for Ireland The Conservative Party did not oppose this. But I can imagine a Tory leader of previous times saying "this is something no British PM would ever agree to" (14/25)
My point is this. Northern Ireland's history is unique, it's relationship with Britain complicated and the Conservative Party's attitude to it far from monochrome despite the simplistic cry that we are unionists (15/25)
There is an uneasy acceptance that Gladstone probably had it right in 1886 when he said that our conduct in Ireland in the centuries before had been a "sad exception to the glory of our country" (16/25)
Where does this take us to in the present day? A customs border in the Irish Sea, and the hypothetical regulatory differences this might lead to, is a big deal. It is not something we would willingly wish to encounter (17/25)
There is the risk that Scottish nationalists would claim a precedent - and that it would reignite tensions in the Unionist Community in NI. These are serious issues to consider that must not be trivialised (18/25)
To set a lead on this situation, the PM would have had to lead from the front to ensure that Scotland's very different context was put in its place. And of course that Unionists in NI were treated with respect, reassurance and decency (19/25)
Bloody hard. But in a situation where Theresa May had a majority of 80 would it necessarily have been insoluble? Given that our relationship with NI has always been about exceptionalism and gradualism, it would deserve equal scrutiny at least to north-south customs checks (20/25)
But Theresa May does not have a majority of 80. She is in a confidence and supply deal with the DUP who will obviously not wear this, and cannot afford to anger any section of the Conservative Party either. And that is really the ball game (21/25)
The overriding conclusion: there are no easy answers in any of this. Northern Ireland is a product of a historical process, put together by a boundary commission led by a South African judge in the 1920s. A very worthy construct some may argue but a construct nonetheless (22/25)
Unionists have always had more of a fear of being abandoned by London rather than being taken by force by Dublin; this is a legitimate psychological impulse inculcated over time through events and times that I cannot even begin to imagine (23/25)
Brexit is pulling all this back into question again. The UK voted as a whole for Brexit and so it must happen. But the only way to keep the union together through it is to accept that the UK has been built on exceptions - no more so true than NI (24/25)
Making any of these arguments of course in a hung Parliament is obviously going to be impossible. So as you were... (25/25)
