May is letting Barnier and Varadkar walk all over her

“The whole map of Europe has changed”, Sir Winston Churchill observed, some years after the first world war, “but as the deluge subsides and the waters fall short we see the dreary steeples of Fermanagh and Tyrone emerging once again”. His famous remark may have worn thin from overuse, but it still describes with unique precision the way quarrels over a border in Ireland have persisted, even in the face of the most dramatic, turbulent international events.

Nearly one hundred years later, as the EU and UK play out their Brexit negotiations against a backdrop of rancorous, Twitter-diplomacy, the same dreary steeples have scarcely been out of view, even for an instant.

On Tuesday, The Times reported that Theresa May had clashed with arch-Brexiteer, Jacob Rees-Mogg, over the likely impact of the border row on Northern Ireland’s constitutional future. The prime minister was holding a series of detailed briefings, designed to heal divisions in the Conservative Party.

Mr Rees-Mogg wants the government to act unilaterally on the border, by making a commitment to build no new infrastructure on the British side. If the EU wants to implement checks in the Republic of Ireland in order to “protect the integrity” of the single market, then that’s its business and its responsibility. And, if nationalists blame the UK for a hard border regardless and demand a ‘border poll’, then Rees-Mogg has “no doubt” voters in Northern Ireland will choose to remain in the UK.

Apparently, Mrs May responded, “I would not be as confident as you. That’s not a risk I’m prepared to take”. The prime minister believes that any border infrastructure on the island of Ireland could increase separatist sentiments, whether it’s built at the insistence of the EU or not. She’s reached this conclusion for understandable reasons. The EU and the Dublin government have used every opportunity to try to warp and magnify the border issue out of all reasonable proportion.

In the Irish parliament on Tuesday, Leo Varadkar described ‘maximum facilitation’ or ‘max-fac’, which many Brexiteers champion as an alternative to May’s idea of a ‘customs partnership’, as less functional than “a deodorant”. Then, rather extraordinarily, he continued, “I have made it very clear to my counterpart in the UK and other EU Prime Ministers that under no circumstances will there be a border”.

It’s unlikely that this cavalier, inaccurate language was a mistake. It reflects quite well the common Irish nationalist delusion that there is no border, or that there may as well not be, because Northern Ireland is in a kind of constitutional limbo established by the Belfast Agreement.

It’s a mentality to which the rest of the UK has only really been exposed in the aftermath of the Brexit poll, as the hard edges of British sovereignty re-emerged, and it’s the source of all those unevidenced claims that buildings or cameras at the frontier would contravene a mysterious, unwritten clause in the agreement.

Irish nationalists are inclined to believe that a ‘united Ireland’ is inevitable and that the implicit purpose of the ‘peace process’ is to bring it about. Britain’s decision to leave the EU has sharpened expectations that Northern Ireland can be wrested from the United Kingdom more quickly than previously anticipated.

Nationalists and republicans discuss increasingly noisily how changing demographics and scepticism about Brexit might affect the result of a border poll. They wish to encourage the idea that – because a majority of people in Northern Ireland voted to remain – a desire to stay in the EU will translate into support for an all-Ireland state under Brussels’ auspices.

This is the type of threat to Ulster’s constitutional status that Theresa May seems to have in mind, but it’s also the challenge that is most straightforward to fend off.

According to Sam Coates in The Times, the prime minister was particularly worried by a poll which suggested that, in the event of a ‘hard Brexit’, public opinion in Northern Ireland would narrowly favour staying in the EU by joining the Irish Republic, over a range of other options. It was an odd poll on which to focus because it was commissioned by Sinn Fein’s GUE / NGL European parliamentary group and it featured an alarmist, loaded question conjuring up ‘no deal on the border, the Good Friday Agreement or citizens’ rights’.

The polling company, LucidTalk, issued something which read rather like a disclaimer, pointing out that all questions were “proposed, promoted and designed by the GUE / NGL”, in line with the group’s objectives.   

The poll was fairly blatantly intended to be used as propaganda, and yet it still showed only 47% support for a ‘united Ireland’, even in the most frightening scenario that Sinn Fein and its allies could conjure up. Less leading questions, including those contained in the same company’s regular ‘tracker’ polls, reveal support for an all-Ireland republic remains at about a third of Northern Ireland’s electorate.

The negative rhetoric around leaving the EU in the province has been relentless and it has caused a lot of fear and uncertainty, so the prime minister is right to be cautious. Yet, it’s worth asking, if people are worried about Brexit because of its perceived potential to disrupt their lives and put their financial futures at risk, how are they going to feel when they contemplate the economic and social turmoil that would certainly follow if Northern Ireland were to leave the United Kingdom?

The drive to loosen the province’s bonds with the rest of the UK and tie it more closely to the Republic, by consigning it to a ‘special status’, is a far more serious and subtle threat to its constitutional position. Dublin and the EU have consistently championed this option, corrupting the so-called ‘backstop’ solution, by demanding that Northern Ireland remain in the single market and customs union in a ‘common regulatory area’ with southern Ireland.       

There are finally signs that the government is responding to this distortion. This morning, the Telegraph reports that the government will propose Britain could remain within the EU ‘customs territory’ after 2021, while more permanent border arrangements are put in place. The paper describes this decision as an agreement to implement the ‘backstop’, as a last resort, albeit for a limited period and across the whole UK. Yet, the EU has already stretched credibility with its reading of the clause and it seems unlikely that it will accept Britain’s more minimalist interpretation.

The government’s attempts to solve Ireland’s Brexit problems by mollifying Dublin and addressing its concerns have so far produced underwhelming results. The strategy has encouraged an idea, across the water and among ultra-remainers, that Leo Varadkar is “standing up for Ireland”, rather than putting his country’s economy at risk, by adopting a confrontational attitude to the UK. The Republic and the EU Commission seem to think Britain’s placatory tone is a sign of weakness.

Yesterday, the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee at Westminster discussed a practical example of British good faith meeting Irish hostility. The Voisinage Agreement provides mutual access to parts of the two countries’ fishing waters. The Republic of Ireland has assumed what Kate Hoey MP described as a ‘tough Brexit stance’ and suspended the agreement, while Britain continues to operate the arrangement and says it’s “committed to the principle” of the deal.

Perhaps the prime minister has good reason to believe that quiet, patient diplomacy will eventually provide a break-through on the Irish border that will satisfy nationalists and protect the Union. On the other hand, Britain’s apparent anxiety about the issue may be encouraging Varadkar and Barnier to make increasingly unreasonable demands, safe in the knowledge that there will be no repercussions under Theresa May’s watch.