I wonder if anyone in the UK government has realised that Brexit and its impact is an existential issue for the Republic of Ireland? Not a pretend one, to be tossed around for a short term political win, but a crisis largely uniting the country in the need for action.
For four years the successive UK governments have suggested the EU and US should prioritise the UK over Ireland. For four years the Irish government has worked at full tilt to stop that happening, and has succeeded. And still the UK try, and still they fail.
The UK government has also managed during this time to alienate in different ways Northern Ireland communities to the extent that any claim to be motivated by the Good Friday Agreement rather than selfish London interests rings entirely hollow.
This tops it all for the UK attitude to Ireland. A Foreign Secretary looking forward to explaining why the EU and by extension Ireland is wrong over Brexit. They're not always big fans of the EU in DC, but that doesn't apply to Ireland. Unbelievable.
https://twitter.com/seanwhelanRTE/status/1306266125781684224
We get the domestic optics, the need to stand up to the EU. But there are ways to do that without damaging your international reputation. Because unless we come to sustainable terms with Ireland those EU and US trade deals don't happen. The CPTPP doesn't make up for that.
Playing the border games again, those insinuations that Ireland should be forced to put up infrastructure, does the government have any idea how destabilising this is across the whole of Ireland, and if they do, how come they don't care?
I preferred the all-UK backstop to the Northern Ireland protocol because it seemed to me the latter carried more risk to the Good Friday Agreement. But I'm quite sure it can be made to work if handled sensitively. Which is precisely what we haven't been doing.
I know there are folk inside the UK and Ireland governments, parliaments, EU and the Northern Ireland assembly and government, who get all of the sensitivities. It is time they were the voices heard, not those who use the language of conflict. We can but hope. /end
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