Opinion

Brian Feeney: It is time Britain went down the Dublin route

Brian Feeney

Brian Feeney

Historian and political commentator Brian Feeney has been a columnist with The Irish News for three decades. He is a former SDLP councillor in Belfast and co-author of the award-winning book Lost Lives

Hard Brexit: Theresa May
Hard Brexit: Theresa May Hard Brexit: Theresa May

Simon Coveney is going to have another go at persuading the British to agree to a British Irish Inter-Governmental Conference (BIIGC) meeting when he meets the proconsul this week.

It’s alarming and depressing that the British have so far refused to agree to such a meeting because the present crisis in the institutions of the Good Friday Agreement is precisely the point of having the BIIGC as laid out in the British-Irish Agreement of 1998.

As that agreement states: ‘In recognition of the Irish government’s special interest in Northern Ireland and of the extent to which issues of mutual concern arise in relation to Northern Ireland there will be regular and frequent meetings of the Conference...’.

Leaving aside the collapse of institutions you’d think the small matter of the customs union and single market might be of mutual concern. We learn also from a Fine Gael party meeting that in February when he met her the taoiseach suggested to Theresa May that there should be the occasional joint Cabinet meeting like the French and Germans hold. No deal.

This pulling away from the Good Friday Agreement by the British is stupid, negligent and dangerous.

Partly it’s at the behest of the DUP whose MPs and members want to maximise the separation between the UK and the Republic and partly because this British government inherited the hands-off approach adopted by David Cameron from 2010 ably abetted by Enda Kenny.

The consequences of this drifting apart are there for all to see. As Senator Neale Richmond, Fine Gael spokesman on Brexit said at the weekend, David Davis’s ignorance about Irish politics is ‘shared by the whole House of Commons’. He added: ‘They do not understand Ireland. They do not know where the border is. They do not know who the taoiseach is or where Sinn Féin is at.’

MPs who have no connection with Ireland have some excuse but not Davis who is allegedly negotiating the UK’s exit from the EU and thinks Varadkar is under the influence of Sinn Féin. There’s you thinking it was Fianna Fáil keeping him afloat.

Davis has done nothing to update himself since 2016 when he got the job. That year he didn’t know the Republic is independent and believed Britain could make a deal with Germany about cars. He’s never been to the border. Dominic Cummings, former special adviser to Michael Gove and Vote Leave guru gave an explanation for Davis’s shortcomings. According to Cummings he’s ‘thick as mince, lazy as a toad and vain as Narcissus.’

It’s astonishing to see that no one in this British government realises it might be in their interest both short and long term to act jointly with the Irish government in any capacity. You might have heard the vacuous interview the proconsul for the time being gave BBC on Friday. Obviously without a clue about what to do next except listen to the DUP and keep the Irish government at bay, she dissembled on every question about steps to restore a devolved administration.

Is she refusing to agree to a meeting of the BIIGC because the DUP oppose it? No. She’s looking at all options. Oh c’mon.

What about a ‘shadow assembly’ which the DUP want? Yes, if the parties want one.

Now folks this is a disgracefully slippery response. Even she must know Sinn Féin and the SDLP are adamantly opposed and will boycott a talking shop designed to keep DUP MLAs paid and scoffing subsidised food ad infinitum.

The correct answer is, ‘No. There is no provision in the Good Friday Agreement or the 1998 Northern Ireland Act for a shadow assembly. We are on the edge of legality as it is because we are required to call an election so we’re not going to compound irregularity by risking a challenge to the legality of inventing a talking shop.’

Anything except work out how to act jointly with Dublin which is the only way forward. Does this British government not know that without Dublin’s agreement there can be no deal in the north? That they’re obliged to consult Dublin anyway under the British-Irish Agreement? That the DUP will never bring the government down? That without Dublin there’s nothing?